


Truly, Madly, Stupidly

by Vixx2pointOh



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Accidentally Naked, Alternate Universe, Bickering, Blow Jobs, Childhood Friends, Christmas, Complete, Cunnilingus, Cute and adorable idiots, F/M, First Kiss, Flirting, Holidays, Horny Teenagers, Masturbation, Only One Bed, Oral Sex, Phone Sex, Pining, Sex, Sharing a Bed, Smut, Snark, Snowed In, So Much Softness, Teenagers, They're still mad @ each other ok, Tipsy Felicity, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-09-18 06:43:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 63,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16989996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vixx2pointOh/pseuds/Vixx2pointOh
Summary: Oliver and Felicity were childhood friends.  Good friends, great friends, the best of friends.  They were...12 years later a snowstorm right before Christmas has them grounded at the same time in the same middle of nowhere town.There is only one motel room left and 12 years of things unsaid.*COMPLETE*Aka: that time I made people on Twitter vote for the most troupey/cheesy cliches I could think of, compiled them and wrote a story from scratch.





	1. First comes friends

**Author's Note:**

> Author Note: Please note that in this fic I have had to do something I haven’t done before and that is change the age gap between them. Childhood friends just seems a little weird when there is a four year age gap and although I have made this work (Thursday and RTTW anyone?) I didn’t want this story to be a carbon copy of either of those.
> 
> So, Felicity was born July 1989 and Oliver was born May 1988.  
> (for the sake of completeness Thea was born January 1998 to keep her approximately 10 years younger than Oliver.)

**Hello, if you follow me on Twitter you will likely understand where the concept of this fic originated from, if you don’t follow me (You really should, I’m mostly delightfully funny ;) ) here is a brief run down.**

**I hate Hallmark Christmas movies.**  
**But, I love pushing myself and my own writing boundaries.**  
**So I started a poll with the most ridiculously cheesy plot points or set ups that I could think of without any idea of what would win and what I would be writing. Fun right?**

**The results came in and I set about writing... this is the result.**

**Thank you to Sandy and Sherall who answered my baseball questions. Thank you Emma for beta-ing. Thank you to Ash who thought me crazy but supported me all the same and thank you to the 220+ people that voted.**

**Enjoy.**

**Here were the results:**

  **Now...onto the story**

**Xox**

**Summer, 1998**

“The crowd goes wild,” Oliver chanted with his long, limber arms punching fists into the air while he ran from one pretend base to another cheering himself on.

The midday sun was high and warm in a near cloudless sky of brilliant blue as the two friends enjoyed the first week of summer vacation in the cul-de-sac of the middle class suburban street they both lived on. The green ash trees that lined the sidewalk allowed the dappled sunlight to make patterns on the concrete as birds flew jauntily from one to the other, perching precariously on the very tips of the top branches to natter out their calls.

Tommy threw his _Starling Thunderbirds_ cap down onto the asphalt in a hissy as he groaned loudly at yet another ‘ass-whopping’ at the hands of his best friend.  
“You know if we were playing ice hockey,” Tommy grumbled as he picked up his hat and dusted the road mess from it.  
“You’d have bet me ten times over,” Oliver announced gleefully, his voice echoing through the still suburban street. “Only, we ain’t and you didn’t,” he teased gingerly.

The low rumble of a truck pulling into the end of the street stopped both the game and the playful jesting between friends as Oliver scooped up the discarded ball and swung the bat over his shoulder before he backed towards the sidewalk.

A little blue hatchback travelling just ahead of the rented moving truck turned into the driveway of the house that had sat vacant for the last month or so. A tidy little villa with white decorative storm shutters and a porch shaded by the large oak tree in the front yard. The older lady that had lived there before would often pay Oliver in lemonade popsicles to pull weeds from her garden when she could no longer manage to do it herself. He’d overheard his parents saying she’d moved to a lovely retirement village out near the coast and that they ought to make a time to go and see her over the summer.

Probably aware the back of the little car was nearly dragging on the road, the driver slowed to a crawl to pull into the driveway, but the back bumper still kissed the street despite her best efforts.

But it wasn’t that which caught Oliver’s attention that typical Saturday. No, it was the young girl sitting in the front seat with curly brown hair pulled back in a skewed ponytail and dark, tortoise shell framed glasses that emphasised her vividly-cobalt eyes.

He smiled wonkily before he tucked the baseball into his jeans and raised one hand, waving it gently back and forth.

The young girl smiled brightly, while she mimicked Oliver’s wave with a leisurely one of her own before the blaring horn from the truck sent Oliver stumbling backwards off the street. The car, and its passengers, disappeared into the double-wide garage and the moving truck pulled up alongside the curb, disappearing Oliver’s view.

Tommy, who had witnessed the exchange, thumped Oliver's arm. "Future girlfriend," he teased the 10 year old before he took off running back towards his house, a dozen houses down the same street.

"SHUT UP MERLYN!" Oliver called down the street, his youthful face puffed up at the mere suggestion of girls. _Girls were weird_. Fact.

“First comes love, then comes marriage,” Tommy taunted from down the block before Oliver took off after him with two very curious blue eyes watching him from behind framed lenses.

“Come on Felicity, let’s take a look inside our new house,” her mother said.

**》》《《**

The next day was a Sunday, the morning started off warm and pleasant with a distinctive aroma of burnt toast and bacon drifting in through the open patio doors in the Queen house – a sprawling two storey (three if you counted the below ground den), 5 bedroom, 4.5 bath house. From the outside it was tidy, modern and quintessentially middle class, but inside his mother had decorated each nock and cranny in a tastefully opulent decor. The Queens were well off, _quite well off_ , if you asked most people, and they could have afforded a house in a gated community where your house sat looking like it was far too large for the section it was built on, or the could have had a sprawling mansion in the ‘countryside’ where your next door neighbour was a 10 minute sprint away. But, both of his parents had made the conscious choice to raise Oliver, and his baby sister, in a far more middle class socio-economic structure than their wealth might otherwise allow for in the hopes it would ground their children in life.

Of course, all of this meant little to the rambunctious 10 year old; all he knew was that his best friend Tommy lived across the street and 12 houses down, and his school was a pleasant 20 minute bike ride away which took him through the park that backed onto the baseball stadium.

That morning Oliver was in a hurry and he was moving around the breakfast table like a hurricane before he guzzled his glass of orange juice and ran for his bat and mitt which were sitting on the hall table.

“The newspaper,” his mother, an attractive socialite who ran a successful catering company as more of a hobby, called out after him and Oliver groaned obtusely at the delay the short jaunt to the letterbox and back would cost him.

But he knew better than to argue unless he wanted to spend his entire Sunday, or every Sunday of his summer vacation for that matter, pulling weeds out of every garden in the street as a lesson in humility.

“Yes mom,” he said dryly as he scuffed his sneakers on the polished wooden floors before he walked, heavy-footed, but not quite stomping, to the white letterbox with the green trim.

He found the newspaper where it always was and he fished it out with a trying moan that made the task seem far more lumbered and painful than it actually was. With the rolled paper tucked securely under his arm, Oliver looked up and, across the road, saw the same little girl from the day before standing, much like he was, by her letterbox pulling out the Sunday paper.

He lifted a hand and waved dutifully.  
Her hand raised timidly to her chest and she waved back.

**》》《《**

The next time Oliver saw her was two days later, it was nearing supper time and Oliver, dirtied from a day running the dirt baseball field a short walk away, was trudging back home with his prized bat slung over his shoulder and his mitt hanging from the end of it.

She was sitting on her lawn, cross-legged and alone, with her nose buried in a book that looked larger than any he’d ever _attempted_ to read. She was wearing a pair of indigo-denim overall shorts with one side hanging open, showing a grey tee underneath that was emblazoned with a faded rainbow decal in the centre. Her mousey brown hair was shimmering a dark blonde in the hazy late afternoon sun and she was chewing on a Strawberry Twizzler.

He stopped at the paved path up to his house and watched her for a moment. She was utterly entrenched in what she was reading and while he didn’t think he’d given much thought to the idea of introducing himself, the next thing Oliver knew he was walking over there.

“Whatcha reading?” he asked with a pop of his lips.  
She looked up before she tugged the red Twizzler from her mouth, “Harry Potter,” she answered simply, lifting the cover of the book just enough for Oliver to see. He had no idea what a ‘ _Harry Potter_ ’ was but he nodded like he did.

“Hi, I’m…” Oliver started.  
“Oliver Queen?” Felicity interrupted with an impish grin.  
He looked bemused. “How did you know?”  
She pointed silently to the mitt hanging off his bat which had _Property of Oliver Queen_ scribbled in black vivid in the palm.  
“Good spot,” he commended and she smiled.  
“Thanks,” she checked her fingers for sticky residue before she wiped them on her shorts just to be sure. “Felicity Smoak,” she introduced as she held out her hand.  
He took it and shook it energetically.  
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance miss,” he said with a stereotypical southern drawl as he tipped an imaginary hat.  
His jest made her laugh and it was one of the airiest and most melodic laughs he’d ever heard and he soon found himself desperate to make her laugh some more just to hear it.

“Are you new to Starling or just new to the neighbourhood?” Oliver asked as he dropped the bat and used it like a walking stick to prop up his slouched body.  
“New to the whole state. We moved from Vegas,” she answered, smiling shyly.  
Oliver’s youthfully-imbued eyes it up; Vegas was the epitome of opulence in his young mind and staying in a penthouse suite with models hanging off his arms and people begging for his autograph would be the pinnacle of his career – _future career._

“Are you a baseball fan?” Felicity asked while she nodded towards his bat.  
“I play some,” he replied modestly, though the lopsided smile on his face was dying to rattle off his achievements without a scratch of humility if he was asked to. “Are you a fan?” he quizzed.  
Felicity shrugged her slender shoulders, only then realising one of her overall clasps had come free. “I don’t really know much about the sport if I’m honest,” she answered as she focused on re-clipping the bothersome clothing and grimacing at not noticing it before.  
“I could teach you,” Oliver exclaimed, somewhat brashly but with a smile that softened the directness.

She chuckled at the suggestion thinking the boy with the floppy mop of blonde hair and the sapphire eyes couldn’t be serious.

“Felicity, hon, dinner is ready,” her mom called from inside the house.  
Felicity cringed; her mother wasn’t much of a cook so she wasn’t sure what ‘delectable delight’ she would be facing on the dinner table; which was actually just an upturned cardboard box in front of the couch as having a place that fitted furniture was a new concept coming from their tiny apartment in Vegas, so there were some ‘gaps’ to fill.

“I better go,” she quipped as she stood up from the front lawn and tucked her book under her arm. “Nice meeting you Oliver Queen.”  
“Nice to meet you too Felicity Smoak.”  
And then he bid her farewell with a wave, which she returned with a smile.

**》》《《**

The next day, a Monday a little after 9am, Oliver showed up on her doorstep with his bat, mitt, ball and a bright, pearly-white smile which was met with a bemused smile from Felicity when she opened the door to his knock.

“You ready?” he chirped as he swished back his floppy fringe which peeked out from the peak of his cap.  
Felicity laughed as she absently mirrored his action, trawling her splayed fingers through her naturally wavy hair. “For what?”  
"Your baseball lesson."  
He answered her like it was the most obvious answer in the world and all Felicity could do was mumble a confused, "I-, I-," and little much else.

She was dressed in towelling shorts and a stretched and baggy tee which she had slept in. She hadn't run a brush through her hair and her tongue still tasted like strawberry pop tarts; she wasn't in any fit state to go outside.

“I can wait,” he chortled as if reading her adolescent and scattered mind.

Donna Smoak appeared behind her daughter, drawn from her morning date with a strong coffee by the sound of her only daughter laughing.

The move from Vegas to Starling was a big one and she had found herself worrying that taking Felicity from her friends – irrespective of the fact they were bouncers and other cocktail waitresses at the establishment where she had worked on 6 inch heels – would be a tough adjustment for her sweet, bright and reserved daughter to make.

But when she found a boy at least a foot taller but with the exuberant face of a child not much older than Felicity, she realised that perhaps she’d fretted over nothing.

Oliver instantly shucked his cap from his head and brushed back the hair from his face while he stood as straight as a butter knife. “Good morning Mrs Smoak.”  
Donna leaned against the doorframe beside her daughter and smiled. “Miss, and good morning to you. Who’s your friend Felicity?”

“My name is Oliver Queen Miss Smoak and I live right over there.” He pointed to his house across the road, clearly the nicest on the block if not within a 5 mile radius. “I can take you to meet my parents if you like.”

Donna nodded as she let him carry on. “If it’s alright with you I thought I could teach Felicity a thing or two about baseball. See there is a field just around the block, but if you prefer we could play right here,” he continued as he pointed to the cul-de-sac.  
“Well that sounds fine to me if Felicity wants to go.” She looked down at her young daughter who bobbed her head in a soft but assured nod.  
“I'll just go change,” Felicity remarked as she backed away from the front door and disappeared up the stairs in a symphony of racing feet on wooden floor boards.

“So how old are you Oliver?” Donna asked as Oliver maintained his straight posture.  
“10 ma'am,” he answered without pause.  
“And what are your parents’ names?”  
“Robert and Moira Queen,” came another swift answer. “I can write down their number if you like.”  
“That's quite alright,” Donna assured him. “Will you have her back for lunch?”  
“Absolutely ma'am.”  
He put out his hand and Donna shook it with a laugh.

Felicity came back down a few minutes later with her hair brushed and pulled back into a ponytail that sat below her crown, a pair of black kicks with rainbow laces, a knit tank top in an ombre of pink and purple tones and a pair of grey jersey shorts. An outfit, in Oliver's opinion, that was fully suited to a friendly game of baseball.

“Back before lunch,” Donna reminded.  
“Yes ma'am. Absolutely,” Oliver chirped as the pair trotted down the front porch stairs.

“We gotta go get Tommy first,” Oliver said cheerily, as the two set off down the street.  
“Okay,” Felicity lithely shrugged even though she wasn’t exactly sure who Tommy was. But there was something else that was making her more curious. “Why do you want to teach me about baseball?”  
“Well,” Oliver took a deep breath, as if there was a great tale to be told, before he continued, “I’m going to be a pretty famous baseball player one day and they often go onto coaching so I might as well start practicing to do that now, is what I figure.” He finished with a smile and his floppy fringe curtaining half his forehead again. “Oh here, I brought you this,” he continued as he handed her a cap which he’d had folded up in his pocket. She looked down at it a little puzzled. “Don’t worry it’s freshly washed and dried last night,” he pledged with his hand over his heart.

She nodded and said a quiet “Thank you,” before she slipped it onto her head and pulled her ponytail through the gap.

“There,” Oliver grinned, “now you definitely look the part.”

They hadn’t yet reached the cobble path to Tommy's house when a young boy, half a foot shorter than Oliver with wild deep-brown hair and a frazzled smile came sprinting out from the house and down the front steps.

Wordlessly he nodded Oliver to match his pace and it became very clear that Tommy was in a hurry.

“TOMMY!” a male voice bellowed from inside the house that Tommy had just dashed out from.  
Tommy, whose face was tense with frustration, stopped and kicked the toe of his shoe against a nearby storm grate.  
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath before he dragged himself back towards the house. “Yeah dad?”  
“Take your sister.”  
“Step,” Tommy grumbled as he stomped back inside two tone brick house.  
He returned a minute later with a brunette the same age, she was wearing florescent pink short-shorts and a Spice Girls tee. Her hair was richly chestnut, silky and immaculately tied back in a perfectly-centred ponytail that sat high on her crown with a scrunchie that was almost identical to the colour of her shorts. She was slim, tall and wearing lip gloss.

Oliver physically groaned.  
“Hi Oliver,” the new arrival purred, the scent of her cherry bubble gum drifting on the passing breeze.  
“Hi McKenna,” he answered wryly. “Felicity this is Tommy’s step sister McKenna, McKenna this is Felicity, she’s new.”

McKenna looked down at Felicity's hand as the younger girl jutted it out, before she buried her hand in her pocket, “Hi,” she said dryly and Felicity retracted her hand. “McKayla and McKenzie are coming too,” she added bluntly.  
Tommy threw his hands in the air. “You don’t get to just invite your friends!”  
She pouted sourly and he grumbled off knowing there was nothing he could do about it.

“Are you visiting from some _little_ town?” McKenna asked while she looked down with mild amusement at Felicity’s clothes.  
“Uh, no, I just moved up from Vegas,” Felicity answered, pretending to ignore the very distinctive vibe she was getting that she wasn’t welcome there.  
“The Vegas,” Oliver added as though that made all the difference.  
McKenna blew a bubble, sucked it in and shook her head as they continued walking. “There’s a lot of crime there.”  
Felicity just shrugged, she could probably argue statistics but it was pretty clear they wouldn’t make a difference here.

“I never asked how old you were,” Oliver chimed in as the troop walked down the street with Tommy kicking a soda can at the head of the pack.  
“I’m 9,” Felicity answered succinctly.  
“We're all 10,” Oliver hummed as though that proved to be a paradox of sorts. “Will you go to school here?”  
Felicity nodded, the brim of her borrowed hat shifting a little further down her forehead. “Starling Oaks.”  
“Same, that’s where we all go. We’re all in Grade 5 though, but McKenna’s friend McKayla is in Grade 4,” he looked at McKenna with sharply-focused eyes, “I’m sure she could show you around and stuff.”  
McKenna huffed, shrugged and managed to roll her eyes simultaneously, “Sure I suppose I could ask.” She had no intention of doing any such thing.  
“Actually I’ll be starting in Grade 5,” she cringed as she said it, half expecting the teasing to start, but it didn’t.

Quite the opposite in fact.  
“Well damn, I’ll finally have a smart friend,” Oliver enthused with impish grin and followed with a hearty laugh as Tommy turned around and scowled.  
“I heard that!” he hollered.  
“We’re friends?” Felicity asked sheepishly. She hadn't really had any of those her own age before.  
“Sure.” He lifted the brim of her hat and tipped his head to one side. “When I’m rich and famous and planning a trip to Vegas I’m going to need someone to tell me all the best spots,” Oliver prattled; and he was entirely serious.  
“Alright then, it’s a deal,” Felicity chuckled. “I know the best waffle house after all.”

**》》《《**

Oliver was shadowing Felicity with her hands braced on the grip and his larger hands over the top as he showed her the right form to hit a ball, well he was attempting to but neither of them could stop laughing at Tommy who was standing on the pitcher’s mound winding up like a tornado.

It really shouldn't have been as amusing to them as it was. But it was summer, they were young and he looked absolutely ridiculous.

"Who’s the mouse?" McKenzie asked as she popped a bubble of grape bubble gum between her overly-glossed lips. She was slender like McKenna but with fairer skin, a smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose, which she loved one day but hated the next, and strawberry blonde hair that caught and radiated the sun quite brilliantly.

The other friend, McKayla was the youngest of the three and was a grade behind her two friends. She was quiet and could often be found staring into middle space while she coiled her honey-blonde hair around her finger. She was probably the most absentminded of the three and that morning didn't contradict that.

“Where is a mouse?” she squeaked as she dropped her hair and pulled her knees tightly to her chest.  
“I mean because of her hair,” McKenzie sighed exaggeratedly as if to show her sheer exacerbation at being asked.  
“Some charity case,” McKenna huffed as she dabbed another coat of gloss on her pouted lips.  
“Oliver and her look friendly,” McKenzie remarked.  
McKenna glanced up briefly. “Don’t be ridiculous, he’s just being nice because she doesn’t have any friends,” she scathed.  
“Looks like she has a friend now.”

McKenna jammed the little pot of lip gloss into her pocket before she abruptly stood up on the second row of the wooden bleachers. She took one step, dramatically stumbled and screamed out loud enough that everyone on the field looked.

“Oh my god McKenna are you okay?” her friends said in unison as they ran to her aid.  
Oliver and Felicity jogged over too, but Tommy, unamused, stayed where he was with his hands on his hips.

“I think I twisted my ankle,” McKenna sobbed as she stretched her hand towards Oliver. With a sigh he offered his hand and helped her up. She leaned against his chest with her arms around his shoulders.  
“Oliver, please could you help me home? You’re stronger than Tommy and I need someone strong to help me,” she pleaded as she fanned her lashes at him.  
Oliver felt his whole body tense at how she was draping herself over him well her two friends smirked. “Can you wait ‘till we’re done?” he asked as he propped her back up onto her own weight.  
“Please it might be broken,” she cried and a single tear she had managed to squeeze out made a dramatic trail down her cheek. “Take McKenzie’s bike and I’ll sit on the handle bars because I trust you.”  
“Fine,” Oliver huffed.  
He gave Felicity an apologetic smile before Tommy offered to walk Felicity home.

**》》《《**

“So your step?” she paused to seek clarification from Tommy who nodded, “sister seems nice, I hope she’s okay.”  
Tommy stopped on their slow saunter back towards their respective houses and shook his head. “She’s a total bitch and I’m sure she’s just fine,” he said gruffly. “I’m even sure she listens to every conversation I have in my room, I just haven’t figured out how,” he pondered wearily.  
Felicity kept walked and Tommy jogged to catch up. “So you aren’t a fan of your blended family?”  
He laughed boisterously. That was his answer.  
“Does anyone else think it’s weird they all have Mc names?” Felicity wondered aloud before a smile tweaked her lips.  
“They’re all evil clones that got dumber each time they got cloned.” Tommy smacked his leg and laughed at his own joke before he stopped and looked at Felicity pensively. “Word of advice though, they’re snakes don’t trust them.”

They stopped at Tommy’s house, with the pink bike now on the lawn.  
“Well this is me, you okay to walk the rest of the way?” Tommy asked as he peered further up the street to the red letterbox he could just see in the distance.  
“I’ll be fine,” Felicity nodded. “Thanks for walking me.”

  
She was halfway home when Oliver caught up to her and began walking backwards a few paces in front of her.  
“How’s McKenna?” Felicity asked.  
Oliver rolled his eyes. “She made a miraculous recovery when we got to her house.” But he didn’t want to talk about that, so he moved on quickly. “You played pretty good for your first time.”  
“I think I’ll leave the ball playing aspirations to you. But thank you, I had fun” she said as they reached her house. She took off his cap and handed it to him.  
“You can keep it,” Oliver decided with a lopsided smile.  
“Wait right there,” she simpered, not waiting for a response before she ran inside. She was gone only a few moments and returned with the Harry Potter book she’d been reading the day before sandwiched between her palms.  
“Here, you can have this in return,” she offered.  
“But you weren’t finished,” Oliver commented.  
Felicity lifted one shoulder into a shrug. “That’s okay I have another copy”  
“You have two copies of the same book?”  
The little nod she gave him made Oliver chuckle.  
“A reading one,” she began as she tapped the one she'd given him, “and a study one.”  
He turned it in his hand, feeling its weight. “It’s a big book.”  
“I believe in you,” she said brightly before giving him a playful wink.  
“Hey I have an all stars game on Saturday, maybe you and your mom could come?” Oliver asked as Felicity started towards her house.  
“Okay,” she nodded happily. “Sounds fun.”  
She ran up her front stairs.  
“See you tomorrow then?” Oliver called after her.  
She stopped at her door and waved. “See you tomorrow.”

**》》《《**

They saw each other every ‘tomorrow’ that week and on Saturday afternoon Felicity and Donna took a seat in the bleachers for the game. Oliver saw them from the field as his team were milling around waiting for the game to start. He waved and Felicity waved back, before he jogged up the aisle and shimmied his way down the row to where she was sitting.

“You came,” he enthused.  
“You asked,” she replied. “Nice outfit,” she added with a teasing glint in her eyes.  
Oliver looked down at his black and white Little League uniform, it was still a little shiny, but he’d soon fix that. “What do people do in Vegas for luck?”  
“Blow on the dice I think,” Felicity replied.  
Oliver lifted his bat towards her. “Could you, for luck?” he asked sweetly.  
She leaned down and blew on the barrel with an effervescent laugh. “Good luck.”

Oliver had one of his best games ever that Saturday, only to be outdone by the Saturday after when Felicity also was there as his newly-minted good luck charm.

The two of them developed a fast friendship and spent almost every day of the first three weeks of their summer holiday together. Their families became acquainted and every Sunday morning without fail they would wave across the street at each other while they collected the paper.

Her by her red mailbox  
And Oliver by his; white with a green trim.

The fourth Sunday of the summer started off just like that only Felicity’s wave was lethargic and slightly woeful and Oliver noticed the difference immediately.

He tucked the paper under his arm and jogged across the street. “Why the mopey face?” he teased light-heartedly.  
“It’s the end of my summer,” she sighed, morose. “My mom goes back to work tomorrow.”  
“Are you doing a summer programme?” Oliver quizzed.  
She looked embarrassed and dug her toes into the grass verge. “We can’t really afford that. My mom is a waitress, we’re only in this house because the guy that owns it was a regular where my mom used to work in Vegas. His mom used to live in it, but she moved to a retirement village so he’s renting it to us real cheap.” She looked up and clamped her mouth shut, wondering if maybe she’d said too much.  
But nothing about what she had said made Oliver even flinch. “Is that why you moved to Starling?”  
Felicity nodded timidly. “He wants to open up a new bar here and he wants my mom to manage it, but his plans have been delayed a little so she needs to pick some other work up in the meantime.” Another glum sigh. “So I have to go to work with her. The diner is going to let me sit at a table as long as I move if they get busy; there goes my summer,” a sarcastic smile fluttered across her lips.  
“When does she start?”  
“First shift is in about an hour.”  
“Okay, wait…” Oliver started running backwards before he called half-way across the street, “…I’ll be back.”

20 minutes later and there was rapt on the Smoak’s door which Felicity answered and found Oliver on the other side of.  
“You don’t have to go, you can stay with us,” he puffed after having just sprinted across the road.

Once the finer points were arranged between the parents, Felicity waved her mom off from the edge of Oliver’s driveway. It looked like her summer wasn’t at a miserable end after all.

**》》《《**

The den in Oliver’s house was a large windowless, open space. There was a TV, a comfy, tan couch and a floor to ceiling bookcase filled with movies. It was tastefully decorated in simple white walls and bright pops of colour in the pillows and the rug that Felicity and Oliver were lying on.

The air conditioner worked decidedly well and Oliver had it turned on so cold that it felt like the dairy section at the local grocery store. She didn’t know why he would ever leave that room to be honest.

It was on the floor, with their heads propped up on throw pillows and a sound system playing pop music behind, that Felicity regaled Oliver with her love and knowledge of 80s music – despite not really being able to call herself a child of the 80s, while he entertained her with his never ending knowledge of baseball.

The hours they spent together soon stretched into days and, over the course of those languid summer weeks, they became fast friends; sometimes they were joined by Tommy and the three Mc’s. Sometimes they could be found loitering around the baseball field or public library when Felicity had her way. There was a trip to the beach and an amusement park, but mostly there was time spent on his den floor discussing everything and nothing while a movie they barely paid attention to, or a an old CD Oliver had found in his parents’ collection, played in the background.

Felicity’s good luck saw Oliver’s team crowned state champions and on the last week of summer vacation Oliver and his parents flew to Pennsylvania to partake in the Little League World Series.

While Felicity offered him good luck over the phone while they chatted the night before his team’s first game, it wasn’t quite the same and the Starling Oaks were knocked out.

But Oliver’s skill didn’t go unnoticed and his name was scribbled in a few notebooks that day.

**》》《《**

They biked together their first day of school and, as fate would have it, they ended up in the same classes. As the years ticked by they became somewhat of a common feature on the neighbourhood landscape. The two had forged a friendship that had made them nearly inseparable despite having different hobbies and the unlikely nature of the pairing.

But they made it work.

Oliver would go with her to science fairs and she would cheer him on from the bleachers at every baseball game he played. It was as though they lived a sort of symbiotic relationship; even if Oliver had no idea what that meant.

As time passed and they moved on from Elementary School into Middle School, Felicity helped him keep his grades up and his size and inherent popularity made sure no one ever picked on her for being smart. There was only one boy that tried it, an 8th grader called Max Fuller but he realised pretty quickly that was a bad idea.

That was the status quo until their Junior Year at High School.

 

**March 2005**

The Junior Year saw them in different classes due in part to the fact that Felicity had selected ones that put her on the track to graduating at 17 and get early admission into MIT while Oliver took what he needed to allow him to focus on the same goal he’d had most of his life; The Baseball Major League.

As he neared his 17th birthday, 2005 was his last chance to compete in a Little League World Series (The Big League) and hopefully be scouted to play college baseball; or even better, straight into drafts when he graduated.

But there was one _little_ thing standing in his way, a glowing-red ‘C’ in maths, and his parents had given him an ultimatum; “fix it before summer starts or no baseball”.

He knew exactly where to turn for help; and by the time there were only a few weeks left of school before summer that pesky C was no more.

In what would be one of their final study sessions before school broke for summer, they were relaxing in Felicity’s bedroom with open text books scattered across her taupe-carpet floor.

It was well after 5pm and Felicity watched the decadent orange and pinks of sunset trickle in through her bay window as she sat cross-legged on the bench seat below it.  
“Is your mom working tonight?” Oliver asked as he lay on Felicity’s bed throwing his ‘Jackie Robinson’ ball in the air and catching it as it came back down.

She glanced over at him, his massive frame taking up most of her full-sized bed and she couldn’t help but chuckle at how the lavender comforter stripped away some of the intrinsic masculinity most boys made a show of. _But not her Oliver._

 _Her Oliver._  
She’d caught herself thinking that way a few times, but it wasn’t like that – like most people assumed.

People often teased them about being a couple but in all their years as friends neither one of them had ever felt that way for the other, in fact Oliver had had a fair string of short-lived romances mostly ending for one of two reasons, they either couldn’t compete with baseball or they couldn’t handle his best friend being a girl.

“Yeah she told me to order in, you wanna stay?” Felicity finally answered him when he turned his head towards her, baseball in hand.  
“I’ll stay, your choice,” he answered. “But when is your mom going to let me visit her work?” he teased with a roguish pluck in his expression.  
Felicity threw a turquoise pillow at him, knocking his prized possession from his hands. “Pervert,” she goaded.  
“Come on,” Oliver sighed as he threw his legs over the edge of her bed and sat up. “She works at the hottest place around.”  
“You’re 17,” Felicity badgered back.  
“So I have needs.”  
She made a vomit face as she playfully gagged. “No one needs to know about your needs.”

She stood up and straightened her crumpled denim shorts. “You haven’t told anyone right?” she asked, watching Oliver’s expression for any hint he was lying; she’d known him 7 years and she was an expert at telling when he was lying; his dimple twitched.  
“Of course not,” Oliver promised, not a dimple twitch in sight. “Not even Tommy, though I don’t get what the big secret is.”  
She sighed, listless. “I just don’t want it getting around school that my mom is a cocktail waitress, you know?”  
“She’s the manager,” Oliver corrected.  
“Same thing around these parts.”  
“Frankly I think it’s an amazing vocation and I champion anyone that does it,” Oliver declared as he saluted.  
She wacked his taut stomach with the back of her hand. “Oliver I’m serious,” she warned.  
He threw his arm around her shoulder and sighed. “I know, and I haven’t. I promise.”  
“You swear?” she asked, looking up at him with turbulent eyes as she held out her pinky finger.  
16 was hard enough without giving your peers ammunition.  
“I swear.”  
“Truly?”  
A chuckle floated from his lips. “Truly,” he chortled.

That night they ordered Chinese and ate it on the floor of the living room while they watched highlights from the first baseball game of the season.

Once the leftovers were in the fridge and they were nearly finished washing up the few dishes and cups they’d used, Felicity had a mischievous idea she couldn’t help but act on.

While Oliver was chatting away about the baseball drafts with his back to her, she scooped up a handful of bubbles from the sink and, preparing to run out of the kitchen as fast as her shorter-than-his legs would take her, Felicity launched the foamy projectile at him, catching him square on the neck. She stood for a second and watched the bubbles slip down his shoulders before her flight instinct took over and she fled.

He caught her in the living room by looping around the other side of the kitchen and he scooped her straight up into the air. She squealed loudly between fits of laughter before Oliver dropped her onto the couch, but he didn’t move away fast enough and her foot caught his leg, knocking him off balance and he toppled over, directly on top of her.

Time stilled. The echo of the clock centred on the wall behind them thumped in time with his heart. Her lips parted; his did too. Their eyes locked. Her throat warmed to a dusky peach. His breath hitched. Time stilled.

He had known her for 7 years.  
_7 years_.  
For 7 years she’d just been ‘ _Felicity_ ’, his fun, happy best friend who was so often shy around people she didn’t know but could talk to him for hours. The girl that would choose listening to 80s ballads and watching sitcoms on repeat over going to tailgate parties or bonfires at the beach.

The one who supported him, even in his faults; but always challenged him to be better than them.

 _His Felicity._  
The girl with the little wave and the crooked ponytail.

But, in that moment all he saw was a beautiful teenager with brown hair, naturally rosy lips, full and parted and vividly blue eyes that were looking up at him just as bewildered as he was.

And all he wanted to do was kiss her.  
Her.  
_His Felicity._

“Oliver?” she breathed, her voice whispered and husky.  
“Yeah?” he hummed, mesmerised by the way her lips moved around his name.  
She choked out a breath. “You’re really heavy.”

He bounded off her and apologised profusely before in one of the only awkward moments during their 7-year friendship so far, Oliver fumbled out an “I’m sorry, I forgot I have a thing with my family tonight,” as he walked towards the door.  
“Oh okay,” she babbled as she kept her eyes to the floor and played instinctively with the tips of her hair. “I have homework too.”

He nodded.  
She nodded.  
They were both lying but neither was going to challenge the other.

“I’ll see you tomorrow for school?”  
“Yep, yep,” Oliver remarked as he opened her front door. “See you tomorrow.”

**》》《《**

That night Oliver lay awake staring at his ceiling in the darkness. It was as though for the last 7 years he’d been wearing blinders and tonight that fall had knocked them clear off.

He’d scoffed at Tommy suggesting that his last ‘relationship’ ( _term used lightly_ ) with Kelly Grebble, a Senior with red hair and a full chest ( _Tommy’s words; not his_ ) didn’t work out because Oliver was really more interested in a brunette with a well-portioned B cup ( _Again, Tommy’s words_ ) and a pair of glasses.

He had laughed at the idea as being preposterous, not because he didn’t think Felicity was pretty, he wasn’t an idiot of course he could see that she was, but he’d never felt that way about her. They were friends. They had been for _seven-fucking-years._

Great friends, the best of friends; but now all he could wonder about was how soft her lips might be, whether she’d ever kissed – _like really kissed_ – a boy. She’d dated a guy from her computer sciences class, Barry Someone-or-Other, a few months back but Oliver never knew if it had gotten serious.

 _Had Barry kissed her the way he wanted to?_  
_Had he felt her warm lips brush against his? Or had her tongue curiously dipped into his mouth; teasing, fighting, dancing? Had his hands found their way across her supple body, gently stroked and caressing her as he studied her excitement on her face or listened for the enjoyment in her tiny moans?_

“Shit,” he huffed into the darkness as he tried to force those thoughts deep into a vault of his brain.

Because things just got stupidly complicated.

 


	2. Then comes a kiss

 

A few weeks later on a crisp Saturday mid-morning, Oliver was wringing his hands around the grip of his bat and kicking his shoes into the dusty strip in front of the dugout.

He’d been happy to see her take her usual seat in the stand but he’d been a little surprised when he noted her regular casual shorts and loosely hung tank top were replaced by a little yellow sundress and her standard ponytail had evolved into a soft braid that she wore over one shoulder. If she was wearing any other makeup he couldn’t tell, but her lips were glossy and tinted a soft red.

Oliver had made his way over to her like he had every other game in the past 7 years; he was in no mind to do the math, but it was definitely a colloquial _shit-load_ of times.

But that day, unlike the _shit-load_ of times that had come beforehand, Felicity was reluctant to lapse into idle chatter or mild teasing and instead she had looked at her watch three times. Of course she had ritualistically wished him good luck like she had done every other time, but Oliver felt heavy and bewildered by the exchange; _something felt off_.

It made sense to him when he glanced back up at her a few practice swings later and Felicity was sitting next to a guy. _Some guy_ ; and by the way she was laughing sweetly at almost everything _some guy_ said, it became brutally apparent that _some guy_ wasn’t just ‘ _some guy’._

He was _a guy_.  
She was with _a guy._  
_A guy_ that wasn’t him.

Those thoughts were still the only ones in Oliver's head when he took his place in the Batter’s Box.

He’d been playing baseball since he was four year old, but on that Saturday in May he absolutely, completely and _utterly_ choked.

He didn’t even swing.  
“Two strikes,” the umpire called.  
“Head in the game Oliver,” Tommy shouted from third base.

And Oliver tried, he really did...

 _But all he could think about were her lips…_  
_The way they dimpled when she smiled,_  
_The perfect peak of her cupid’s bow,_  
_The way she’d swipe gloss over them while she talked,_  
_The way she licked them when she was thinking hard enough,_  
_Her lips,_  
_Her beautiful…_

The next ball thumped him straight on the helmet and Oliver went down like a felled tree.

When he came to, he assumed the face he saw, bathed in warm sun like a glowing halo around her head was a mirage. A mirage of the best friend he was truly, madly, _stupidly_ in love with.

He liked this mirage.

“Oliver, are you okay?” she asked softly, her voice hazy and almost ethereal as he heard it.  
“I love you,” he dreamily sighed.  
“Give him some space,” came the call from the coach and most of the crowd backed away.  
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Felicity asked as she crouched lower and held up three fingers.  
Oliver hummed; _dream-felicity wanted to math, he didn’t want to do math_. “I looooveeee yoooouuu,” he repeated, dragging out the vowels before he bopped his finger on the tip of her nose.  
“Oliver, please,” she begged as the haze around her head started to become crisper in his eyes as the fog in his brain lifted.  
“I love you?” he said for the third time, only with an inflection that suggested he wasn’t quite so sure anymore.  
She took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I love you too, but I need to make sure you’re okay.”  
“You love me too?” his face lit up, hopeful, as he felt tears welling up behind his eyes.  
“Of course I do,” she smiled, “you’re my best friend.”

There was nothing more sobering than those four words, _you’re my best_ friend.

My.  
Best.  
Friend.

One could not be deeper into the _friend's zone_ than that.

**》》《《**

  
After the game Tommy jogged up to Oliver who had sat the rest of the match out on the bench, stopping in front of him to catch his breath before he spoke.  
“Girls over there,” Tommy started as he waved at two attractive college girls standing a fair distance away. They waved back. “They want to know if we want to go to the movies with them tonight.” He patted Oliver’s shoulder before he squeezed it. “I don’t know whether they like us because the team still somehow managed to win, or whether they just feel sorry for you,” he added when he laughed.  
“I’m not in the mood,” Oliver mumbled as he let his eyes wander over to where Felicity and _the guy_ were talking.

To Oliver he didn’t look like her type, slender, glasses, un-ironic shaggy hair; but instead he was tall and fit with cropped hair and a chiselled jaw.

“Fine, suit yourself. Pine after the girl you'll never have the guts to tell,” Tommy rebuked as he walked away.

Oliver grumbled nonsense under his breath as he forced his eyes to his shoes and the dust that coated them. Anything was better than seeing her with _some guy_ who absolutely, couldn’t possibly, be worthy of her or treat her like she deserved.

The next voice he heard was McKenna's and while he considered faking a fainting spell, he found himself looking at her as she sat down beside him, ridiculously close.

“When are you going to realise that the state’s star player and the head cheerleader of the current reigning under 18 squad belong together?” she laughed as she swished the end of her high ponytail against his cheek and laid her slender fingers on the cusp of his shoulder. “Can't fight the universe,” she purred as she leaned so close to his ear that he felt every word she spoke.

Oliver slid a few inches away and shrugged her hand off his shoulder. “Not today,” he answered gruffly.  
“People belong with their own kind you know,” she started, pursing her lips as she spoke. “The popular ones with other popular ones, the nerdy ones with the… well, the not so popular ones,” she blathered on despite the very distinctive roll in his eyes and groaned exhale.  
“Have a good night McKenna,” he said when he finally stood up and walked away.

He stopped near the edge of the diamond when he saw Felicity, happy and radiant with wisps of hair which had come loose from the braid framing her face and dancing with the gentle breeze.

“Hey, how’s the head?” she asked as she stopped just ahead of him, close enough that he could smell her vanilla-scented body spray.  
“Feels like I took a ball to the side of it, but it might be my ego that's a little more bruised,” he joked as his fingers twitched at his side, desperately wanting to hold her hand.  
“The pitch was high, but you didn’t even flinch, what were you thinking about?” she wondered, threads of worry woven in both her words and the slight arch in her brow.  
He shook his head and shrugged. “Uh. Nothing.”  
She didn’t look like she entirely believed what he was telling her, but she let it slide with a feathered sigh.  
“What are you doing tonight? Can we hang out, watch some old movies?” Oliver asked, steering the conversation elsewhere.  
“Isn’t there a party on tonight?” she jested as she pinched his arm.  
He smiled languidly, relishing the bolt of electricity he felt when she touched him now.  
“Yeah,” he chortled, “but you hate those.”  
“But you don’t,” she tapped her finger on his nose. “You should go.”  
“And leave you at home to lounge around in your sweatpants alone? I think not.”  
“Actually,” she hummed before she glanced behind, “I have a thing tonight.”  
“A thing?”  
He watched her cheeks full with a smile and glow with a rosy blush.  
“A date,” she said timidly with an embarrassed squint. “Don’t you dare make fun of me Oliver.” Her dazzling blue eyes were wide like saucers and begging him with furrowed brows.  
“With that guy?” Oliver nodded to the same guy he’d seen before who was now loitering by the fence a few feet away.  
“His name is Chris, he goes to our school,” she advised as she gave him a brief wave.  
Oliver’s lips rolled over words he knew he shouldn’t say. “Never seen him before,” he remarked sardonically.  
Felicity playfully smacked Oliver’s forearm, thinking the brooding face was some sort of big brother/little sister act. “Well he does. His dad is in the military so he moved here a couple of months ago.” Oliver shook his head, “He’s on the wrestling team…”  
Still nothing, not that Oliver was trying all that hard to place him.  
“You’re going to go out with this guy? What do you even know about him?”  
“Oliver, have a good night,” she flashed him a placating smile before she gave him a hug that he didn’t want to let go of.

But when she pulled away, he had no choice.  
“What’s his last name?” Oliver called after her.  
She turned near the fence and waved before her and _some guy Chris_ walked off together.  
Oliver grabbed another player from his team.  
“You know that guy?” he asked tersely.  
“Uh, that’s Chris Chance,” the teen replied.

 _Some guy_ had a name.

**》》《《**

The idea of sitting at home moping didn’t seem like a good one and Oliver found himself reluctantly at a beach-house party, sipping cheap beer from a red solo cup and getting progressively drunker as the night moved on.

And then they showed up.

She was wearing black jeans and a little pink sweater that looked so innocent, her hair was pulled back and she was wearing her glasses – he loved her like that.

He watched as _some guy Chris_ fetched her a drink.  
He watched as she leaned against the balustrade of the porch and _some guy Chris_ shadowed her, undoubtedly drinking in the sight of her full, succulent lips and imagining how her body might feel grinding against his.

He watched her laugh at his jokes.  
He watched him graze the back of her knuckles with his finger.

Oliver watched it all. Every little interaction.  
Every touch.  
Every laugh.  
_Everything_.

He was even watching when Chris began tickling her at the waist making Felicity laugh and squirm. If Oliver was a lot less drunk he would have noticed her smile, her laugh, her willingness to be a part of the little game they were playing.

But Oliver wasn't sober.  
Not even a little.

So when he saw her mouth form the word stop several times he headed straight for them.

Oliver's fist made contact with the side of Chris' face which sent the ambushed man straight to the floor.

“Oliver, what the fuck?” Felicity screamed and Oliver couldn't remember the last time he'd heard her swore. _Had she ever?_  
It didn't matter right now.  
“She said stop, you didn’t stop, she told you to stop, that means get your fucking hands off her,” Oliver ranted as he jabbed his fist into the air.  
“Oliver, we were playing, it wasn’t like that,” Felicity remarked as she set her drink on the railing and helped Chris to his feet.  
“She’s 16, and you’re fucking giving her alcohol?” Oliver growled as he swiped her cup and inhaled it's contents deeply.  
“Oliver, that’s soda,” she huffed over her shoulder as Chris brushed himself off, “and you’re 17 so stop acting so pious.”  
“Are you drunk?” Oliver slurred.  
Felicity shot him a deadly glare. “Are you?” she stepped closer and caught the stench of beer. That answered her question. “How many have you had?”  
“Four, three, six, hows-many has-you had?” he mumbled, licking his dry lips frenetically.

He stumbled and Felicity tried her best to keep him upright, but straining under his weight until she could lean him against the railing.  
“You might well have had a concussion today Oliver and you’re out here drinking, are you an idiot?”  
He laughed. “Probably.”

Felicity turned her attention back to Chris. “Are you okay?” she asked, her brows furrowed apologetically.  
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he gritted as his hand stroked his now-throbbing jaw. He spat into a nearby potted plant. “But I don’t need this drama,” he added before he disappeared inside the house and into the swarm of underage and drunk high school students.

“Thanks for that Oliver,” she said glaring at the boy she considered her best friend; although not right at that moment.  
“You liked that guy?” he scoffed with a little laugh.  
But she wasn’t laughing. “He was a nice guy.”  
“You deserve better than nice,” he sulked back against the railing.  
She sighed. The night was over. “Let’s go home,” she said, offering her shoulder for him to walk with.

They caught a taxi home with Oliver falling asleep on her lap and the driver casually commenting it was often the other way around. She used the cash in Oliver's wallet to pay the fare and a hearty tip; frankly she deserved a tip from his wallet too.

She snuck him in through the back door of his house, but Robert Queen found them, thanked Felicity and assured her that he’d leave the serious talking to Oliver was going to get until the morning.

**》》《《**

As the summer drew to a close and with one final win, Oliver's all star team once again made it to the World Series, this time held in South Carolina.

And, unlike any time before, his Vegas good luck charm was going with him.

The team advanced easily through the other teams until they'd made it to the final.

The sun was high and the dry heat was casting a hazy light across the horizon. Oliver could feel the sweat bleeding into the lines of his palm and he could taste the salty drips around his parched lips.

He breathed slowly, the sound of it echoed and muffled in the full helmet. He could feel his heart thumping into his chest.

He watched the pitcher wind up. He'd watched him before and he knew he swung slightly to the left. He knew there wasn't a scratch of wind. He knew the bases were loaded.

Another breath.  
Slow, measured.  
_Breathe in._  
_Breathe out._

 _I believe in you,_ her words from before the game cleared his mind of everything else.

And then he swung.

The sound of the bat connecting with the white cowhide was like a gunshot in an echo chamber and the feeling resonated down Oliver's arms.

He lost sight of the ball until the crowd erupted into applause and three runners came home.

They'd won.

The bat swung loosely from his hand before he turned slowly back towards the stadium and the crowd spilling onto the field.

There was a sea of people, some he knew, many he didn't. But Oliver only saw one face. _Hers_. She was waiting back, letting him have his moment to bask until he ran towards her.

In the swarm of people Oliver lifted her at the waist into the air and swung her around in tight circles. She was laughing, filling his ears with exuberant joy.

And as he lowered her back to the ground Oliver did something he hadn't expected to.

He kissed her.

His hands cupped her face, tipping it up gently and folding his fingers into her soft hair. His thumbs stroked up her cheeks and their lips melted into each other.

It was soft and warm.

He kissed her.  
And, she kissed him back.

Until soft warmness was brutally replaced with the sharp, frigid bite of icy water from the bucket his team had dumped onto them.

They flew apart and the crowds became bedlam. Wild team mates. Excited friends. Screaming fans.

They had won.  
She believed in him.  
His perfect good luck charm. His best friend. The girl he was in love with.

**》》《《**

Later, when the excitement had died down, Oliver found Felicity on the way to the locker room.

“So that,” he started as he kicked his foot into the ground. He couldn’t even look at her, afraid she’d see what he’d kept to himself so long.  
Shook her head with screwed up eyes. “That,” she said with a soft chuckle.  
Her hair was still wet from _that_.  
“I didn’t...” He looked up, finished the sentence in his head ... _want it to be like that._  
“It’s fine Oliver,” she brushed her fingers down his arm, rolling over the taut muscles years of swinging a bat had given him. “It was an ‘in the moment’ thing. You’d just done something amazing,” Felicity gushed, squeezing his forearm just below the elbow.  
He exhaled, that wasn’t what he was going to say.  
“Right,” he nodded, and then looked up, “that’s how you feel too?”  
Her head bobbed as she kept a smile on her face and her hand on his arm. “Of course, like a New Years kiss, they never mean anything,” she added with an off-handed shrug.  
“They don’t?” he piqued.  
“No, of course not, you just grab a person and kiss them,” she remarked while her hand slowly slid down his arm, until they were, unbeknownst to them, holding hands. “Or take mistletoe,” she added as their fingers curiously rolled together, neither noticing the habit they’d formed.  
“Are you about to slander the great tradition of kissing under a dying plant?” Oliver gasped dramatically as his free hand clutched at his chest.  
She lifted her body onto her toes to be a little closer to his eye level, given Oliver was now nearly 2 feet taller than her.  
“Oh I think I am,” she sassed with an arched brow.  
Oliver tutted her brusquely. “Honestly, I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.”  
Their hands finally drifted apart, still with neither of them noticing.  
“My point is, there are some kisses than _mean_ something and there are a few that don’t,” she concluded.  
“New Years,” Oliver started as he raised one finger to count. She nodded. “Mistletoe,” he continued as he raised a second finger.  
Felicity raised the third of his fingers. “And winning a world series.”

“So you don’t have to feel bad,” she added with a bright smile that had him momentarily paralyzed in his own feelings. “We’re good.”  
He smiled back, though it paled to hers. “Good.”  
“Now go change so we can go out and celebrate,” she giggled before she leaned over and smacked his ass.

They never spoke about that kiss again.

**》》《《**

When school started back in September the air had started to cool and the realisation that Senior Year was upon them stole much of their focus.

Fall turned into Winter;  
Winter changed to Spring  
And it what seemed like a blink of an eye, almost a year had gone by they were both facing the barrel of graduation.

While their classes often split them to opposite sides of the school, they would always walk or bike home together and there was always the quiet comfort they both got from their ritualistic Sunday morning letterbox wave.

Life got busy; Felicity was pushing for early admittance to MIT and Oliver was trying to get drafted, but they always tried to make time to lie on the floor of Oliver’s den and drown out the madness of life with everything from the smooth tones of Prince to the power house that was Whitney Houston and every 80s icon in between.

  
**Late May, 2006**

It was athletics day and Oliver was standing in line for the shotput, waiting his turn and watching something across the field with absolute adoration. Or rather, _someone_.

She was running track laughing with a girl who had recently moved from Central City, she always found a way to make new people feel welcome and she had told Oliver once it was because he’d done that for her and she was simply “paying it forward”.

The flush on her cheeks made them look full and rosy and she was smiling. Her ponytail was sagging and she was wearing contacts. There wasn’t a thing about her that he would change; and as graduation and everything that came with it drew closer, Oliver knew that he either needed to take a risk or lose the chance forever.

“Prom?” McKenna smiled as she touched the collar of Oliver's polo.  
He shrugged her off like a pesky fly, but she was far more resilient than any winged pest.  
“It’s coming up in a few weeks, just after finals,” she continued as she rested her chin on his broad shoulder.  
“Uh-huh,” he mumbled.

He’d almost admitted his feelings to Felicity on his 18th birthday, he almost had. They were sitting on the beach outside his parents vacation home along the coast. The wind was chilly and she was cuddled in close to him with her head on his shoulder. He had inhaled the scent of her shampoo and held it for as long as he could as the flames of the nearby bonfire licked whips of orange into the dark night.

Everyone else there were ‘no ones’, irrelevant; he only saw her.  
But then someone yelled for a midnight swim and the next thing there was a crash of high school party goers running into the surf and shattering the night with their boisterous noise.

And he chickened out.

But then he actually registered what McKenna was saying... _Prom_. When the finals were done, their high school duties were officially finished. _Prom_.

That was it.  
He would ask her to prom. Then he'd tell her.  
Tell her he was in love with her.

“Prom,” Oliver sighed wistfully, that was his chance to take a risk.  
“Yes, prom,” McKenna laughed, almost shrilly in Oliver's opinion, it was no comparison to Felicity’s, that was for sure. “So are you going to ask me? I can make myself available. We are dating after all?”  
He looked up at her sharply. “We are?” That was news to him.  
“Saturday night silly,” she answered as she played with hair at the nape of his neck.

Felicity looked across the field at that moment and her heart thudded like it was squeezed into a vice. She swallowed it down as best she could. Oliver was her friend, if he chose to date the girl who had not gone a day in the last 8 years without making her feel like she was _less than_ then she would just have to find a way to stomach it. Because he was Oliver, her best friend... the boy with the floppy hair and the ginger wave. The boy she _might...just..._

Felicity shook her head, she needed to get rid of the ridiculous notion that he would be anything other than what he was. Her friend. _Not her boyfriend._

“I went to the movies with Tommy. You came too,” Oliver argued before he plucked McKenna's hand from his neck. “That wasn’t a date.”  
“Either way,” she shrugged, “You're a shoo-in for Prom King and _obviously_ I’ll be the Prom Queen. It just makes sense. Give the people what they want,” she continued without a shred of anything Oliver found appealing and honestly if she wouldn’t make the home life of his other best friend, Tommy, utterly miserable he might just have told her how obnoxious he found her.

He ran a hand through his shaggy, sandy hair and looked back across the field at Felicity. “I'm actually going to ask someone else,” he said, his eyes staying on Felicity as he coyly waved and she waved back. “Have a good weekend.”  
Oliver walked away, heading towards Felicity.

“Hi superstar,” Felicity said with a wink when Oliver was close enough to hear.  
“Not yet,” he chuckled.  
“Well,” she breathed as she pepped up onto her toes. “You will be, I believe in you.”  
“You always have,” he said warmly.  
“Always will,” she answered back almost immediately. “Just make sure the second home run you hit is for me.”  
“Why not the first?”  
Felicity laughed and her hand found its way to his shoulder. “Save that for your parents, they’ve put up with you _way_ longer.”

He watched her eyes dance with delight at her own joke and he wanted nothing more than to lean in close to her ear and whisper that she looks the prettiest just like that. But he didn’t, he kept that hidden behind a smile.

“It’s a deal,” he chortled. “What are you doing tonight?”  
She rolled her eyes and sighed loudly. “Studying. Finals,” she answered dryly.  
“You know you’re acing those finals though right?”  
“Maybe I’m not as smart as I think,” she shrugged.  
He nodded before she slapped his arm. “You’re actually way smarter than you give yourself credit for.”  
“You wanna hang out? Mom's working.”  
He loved the way she teetered on her toes when she was asking for something.  
And then the bell rung.  
“Absolutely I do,” he leaned in and pecked a kiss on her hair line. “See you after school at the bike rack.”


	3. And soon disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now comes that time of every Hallmark movie where it's a train wreck you just can't stop from happening and no one hears you yelling at the TV... be honest, this happens.

  
The desire to study had waned about 30 minutes after Oliver had knocked on her door and walked in. They'd since ordered pizza and the stereo in her room was cycling through songs from the likes of Cindy Lauper, Madonna and Bonnie Tyler.

Oliver had tried his best not to look awkwardly at Felicity when "Like a Virgin" came on, but keeping his eyes off her was getting harder and harder... _no pun intended._

“So what good Samaritan deeds does your mom have you doing this weekend?” Felicity asked as she threw her crust into the nearly-empty pizza box.

While Oliver's parents were rich and he had had the loan of any of the four cars they owned, none of them were considered ‘his’ and he wasn’t allowed to drive any of them out of State. And, while they could have easily purchased him one, they didn't want to make it that easy and in their minds turn him into the type of self-entitled kid that didn't appreciate what he had or what others had to work hard for.

But there was some leniency and rather than spend all his free time working in a fast food joint for minimum wage, he had other criteria to meet during his senior year.

Firstly, he had to keep his grades up and graduate, no exceptions. With Felicity's help that hadn't been much of a struggle and unless the very unlikely happened and he bombed out every single exam, he would be fine on that count.

Secondly, he had to volunteer once a month for a day. He didn't mind this one because Felicity often went with him and spending an entire Saturday with her, watching her crack jokes with pensioners at the retirement village or deliver Easter gifts to the children's hospital... it was honestly not even remotely a chore for him.

The third ask was that when his mother needed wait staff he would step in and whatever he would have earned that night would go towards the insurance on his future car.

He'd seen the year almost completely through and he was getting the car. He had plans.

“I'm in the clear, except for catch number three. I have to stand in as a server at a wedding this weekend,” Oliver shrugged.  
“That sounds fun,” she teased as she padded over to her bathroom and kicked the door closed. “Are you sure your own car is worth it?” she asked from the sink where she was checking for pizza sauce remnants.  
“That's a foolish question Smoak. My own car in time for summer which I can drive out of State, of course it's worth it,” Oliver replied from the comfort of her bed.  
“And what are your plans? Cabo?” Felicity asked as she reappeared from the bathroom.

She had piled her long hair onto her crown and fastened it with an elastic there. She had also changed and was wearing one of Oliver's old baseball shirts that he'd grown out of two years before. It was loose on her shoulders and if she didn't tuck the tails into her black jogging shorts it would have looked like she was wearing nothing else.

He wasn't surprised. After she ate pizza she _always_ changed into something more comfortable to lounge in. It was her little ritual and it would have been weird if she hadn't.

“I let you know if they pan out,” he said with a puckish grin.  
“So mysterious,” she cooed as she plopped down onto the bed beside him; her head at his feet. He knew the drill and as if by instinct Oliver began massaging the balls of her feet. “Anyway if you want an extra pair of hands tomorrow night you can have whatever your mom would pay me to add to your slush fund.”  
She sighed as her head tipped lazily back onto the kickboard of her French-chic bed.  
“Don't you need the money?” Oliver asked while he teasingly pinched her little toe.

She sat up wearing a broad smile.  
“My scholarship pays for school and I have enough in the bank to afford the good kind of ramen,” she explained as her smile grew more impish. “Annnnnnd…”

“And what?” he asked curiously suspicious.  
She stood off the bed, took a breath and gave him the news. “I got the summer internship,” she squealed.  
“NO WAY!” Oliver reactively bounded off the bed and threw his arms around her, hugging her until she tapped out, laughing happily at the tight squeeze he could get around her.  
“It’s barely paid and I'll probably just be answering help desk questions all summer but it's a foot in the door,” she gushed happily.  
“That's great. When do you leave?”  
“June 16th. Just after finals,” she explained.  
“Wait that's before graduation,” Oliver noted, counting the days in his head.  
She nodded lithely. “I know, it's the walk I'll miss so they'll just mail me my certificate.”

 _Prom was the 17th._  
“That's the day before prom,” Oliver remarked his body sighing as his spoke.  
Felicity shrugged half a shrug. “I wasn't planning on going that so no great loss,” she admitted.  
“You weren't?”  
“It's really not my thing.”  
He knew it wasn't but maybe _if she went with him..._  
“Chris didn't ask you?” Oliver hated bringing his name up but he needed to stall to give himself a way to make this work.  
“Chris hasn't spoken to me since you decked him at the party last year,” she pouted as she folded her arms across her chest.  
“I'm sorry about that,” he grimaced as he swept a hand through his moppy hair. But his dimple twitched; he wasn’t sorry at all.  
“It's fine. I probably wasn't his type anyway. He would have figured that out soon enough,” she lamented.  
Now Oliver crossed his arms over his chest. “Don't do that,” he reprimanded.  
“Do what?”

“Put yourself down like that. Any guy would be lucky to date you.”  
She laughed at his suggestion before she pinched his waist to make his arms unfold. Which of course they did. “You have to say that,” she hummed, “I know too much.”  
“Oh really?” he pinched her waist back, making her giggle.  
“When you're a famous baseball player don't think I won't tell the newspapers about that time you stole grapefruit from Mr Archer's backyard or the time you threw up in Tommy bed and blamed the dog,” she smirked as he inched closer.  
“And you know I'm going to tell them about...”  
“Don't,” he warned. They were so close they shared the same air.  
“Oh I will,” she said huskily.  
“Don't.”  
She lifted onto her toes until their noses nearly touched.  
“You trying to make pot brownies in your mom's kitch...”  
She never finished the word as Oliver tackled her around the waist, lifting her towards the bed, but years of yoga had made her quite limber and she managed to turn him so that it was Oliver that landed with a huff onto her bed and Felicity was on top, straddling his hips with her knees tucked into his waist.

Oliver's hands were nestled into her waist with his thumbs hooked under the jersey that used to be his, gliding over her smooth stomach. Her shorts had bunched up her legs, giving Oliver an eye full of her silky thighs up close. She moved, just a fraction, above him and Oliver moaned silently because that faint movement ricocheted right onto his throbbing cock. _Fuck_.

Felicity took a shaky inhale as his thumbs moved in tiny, slow circles near her waist. There was something happening; something bubbling between her legs and burning into her core, something she wasn't exactly new to... but something that she'd never felt to this aching, desperate level of need before. Like if she didn't act on it her whole body would sob, unfulfilled.

She wanted him.  
In every way.

She leaned down and kissed him, like a feathery brushing against his lips. It was lingered, slow, and moist. There was no hurry to it, no crazy moment where you lose your mind. It was angelic, heavenly but the only thoughts Oliver's mind was conjuring up were primal and salacious.

He wanted to pull open the little snaps at the front of her jersey. He wanted to discover her breasts with his mouth. He wanted to have her underneath him. He wanted to have sex with her in the bedroom where they had spent countless hours growing up together. He wanted to have sex with her on her lilac comforter. He wanted to push his cock inside her slowly until he was completely seated there. He wanted to feel the crush of her tight walls. He wanted to give her every pleasure and... He wanted to get his own pleasure from her. _But..._

Felicity pulled away and where she was expecting to maybe see a dopey smile or really any smile... she was faced with tight lips and wide eyes. He looked petrified.

_What had she done?_

“I should go,” he mumbled as he felt his cock hardening underneath her... He only had a few moments before it would become impossible to hide and she would absolutely be able to feel it.

But not here.  
Not like this.  
She deserved to know how he really felt. She deserved to know that he loved her and that she was special and that one hot and crazy moment on her bed wasn't all he wanted. He wanted his best friend to be his girlfriend and he wasn't going to let one crazy moment of hormones to mess everything up.

“Right. Of course. Sorry,” she casually laughed as she slid off him.  
“It's not,” Oliver started though the ache down his cock was now verging on painful and there was only so much thigh squeezing that he could do to hide it.  
She backed herself into a corner of her room near her bay window.  
“It was just a moment thing that was dumb I don't even know why I did it,” she remarked, looking anywhere but at him. “I guess there is a fourth kiss that doesn't count,” she laughed airy, her best cover-up for the deep sadness in her heart.

 _How could she have risked something so amazing for a moment?_ She didn't want to lose Oliver. Not now. Not ever. He was the one she trusted.

He wanted to stay, he wanted to explain everything but the raging boner was going to make itself known very soon and Oliver made a choice.  
“Goodnight Felicity,” he said softly from her open door.  
She looked up and gave him a slightly wavering smile. “Night Oliver.”

**》》《《**

Oliver jogged, somewhat frantically, down to Tommy’s house, and by the time he got there, his erection had, thankfully, disappeared. But his slightly panicked face hadn’t, so when McKenna opened the door to him and let him up to Tommy’s room she also quietly sauntered into hers, closed the door and tucked herself close in to the air vent, the one that connected with the one under Tommy’s bed. The one that allowed her to hear _everything_.

“Did you ask her?” Tommy quizzed as Oliver fell in his room, huffing and puffing to catch his breath.  
“She kissed me,” Oliver panted, his hair fallen over one eye.  
“Who, Felicity?” Tommy blurted.  
Oliver pushed himself off from the door and walked deeper into Tommy's room. “Yeah.”  
“That's a good thing right?” Tommy slouched into his office chair while Oliver perched on the edge of the desk.  
“No. I mean yes. But no. I wasn't ready,” he huffed as he looked down at his pants. “I didn't prepare.”  
“Fuck did you get a hard on and no time to tuck your cock into your pants?” Tommy exclaimed before he made himself laugh.  
“Something like that.”

“Did this happen before or after you asked her about prom?”  
“I didn't ask her,” Oliver lamented before he groaned loudly in annoyance at himself. “She won't even be in Starling for prom.”  
“So she just randomly kissed you?” Tommy quizzed as he tapped a pen on the edge of his desk.  
“We were fooling around... not like that,” he glared at Tommy who shrugged in pseudo-innocence. “And she ended up on top of me on her bed and all I could think about was...” a sigh tapered off his confession early.  
“Was?”  
“You know,” he shrugged.  
“You wanted to have sex?”  
“I wanted to have sex with my best friend. What the fuck is wrong with me?” Oliver groaned before he got up and paced the length of Tommy's room.  
“You're an 18 year old dude,” Tommy jested. “I'm pretty sure it's a fact that we think about sex like 80% of the time.”  
Oliver combed his hand through his hair, grabbing the ends. “But it's Felicity.”  
“And she's hot.”

He glared across the room at Tommy. “I'm not supposed to think of her like that.”  
“Why? She's been hot since like 15, cute before then, I don't know what took you so long to see that. If you weren’t in love with her I would have asked her out myself,” Tommy remarked as he stretched out and put his feet on his desk.  
Oliver slapped them down before he went back to pacing and Tommy stood up. “How does she feel about you. _She_ kissed _you_ right?”  
“I don't think she meant to. It was like a swept up in the moment thing,” Oliver responded as he paused to look out the window into the night.  
“Maybe she wants you to have sex with her before college?”  
“That's another thing,” he breathed as he turned slowly towards Tommy, “she's leaving for the internship in Boston the before prom, that’s why I didn’t ask.”  
“So maybe she wants to experience _little Oliver_ before then. I mean,” he paused, very likely expecting his friend to give him a dead arm, “is she still a virgin?”

Oliver glared at Tommy, thinking about Felicity having sex with someone else wasn’t exactly his idea of fun. They were friends but that was sort of an invisible line they never crossed. He’d never told her about his... _introduction_ to sex and he didn't expect she would enlighten him on hers, if there was one.  
“I don't know. I think so. I don't know,” he rambled.  
“Do you want her to be?”  
“That's really none of my business,” Oliver hissed, it felt wrong discussing her like that, or maybe he just didn’t _want_ to think about Felicity being with anyone...not even him.  
“Right...” Tommy trawled, “but if you _could_ , would you deflower her?”  
“You're a real piece of work. Why the fuck are we friends?” Oliver snapped back; mostly in jest.  
“No fucking clue,” Tommy laughed. “But you should ask her to the prom anyway.”  
“Why? I just said she's leaving the day before.”  
Tommy put his hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “No internship is starting on a Saturday,” he commented. “Maybe she just needs a reason to stay another night. Book a room... pop a cherry.”  
Oliver brushed Tommy’s hand off his shoulder. “Shut up.”  
“Hey I'm just saying 8 years you guys have been friends and the first time should be with someone you trust,” Tommy remarked as he held his palms up in surrender. “The way I see it. It's a win-win.”

He wasn’t necessarily wrong, Oliver thought to himself, what if Felicity was still a virgin and she wanted to go to college not one... But, as much as the teenage male hormones coursing through his body wanted to test that theory and go back to her house right now, he also knew his feelings for her went deeper than that. He needed to figure out a way to tell her, one that wouldn’t jeopardise the last 8 years, because Oliver would rather live with unrequited feelings than live without his best friend.

“Watch the game here tomorrow?” Tommy asked, he’d said enough on the other thing now.  
“I can't, Mom is making me work a wedding,” Oliver replied as he walked towards Tommy’s door.  
“For the car still?”  
“Yep.”  
“Your parents are richer than mine, they should just give you the car,” Tommy jested.  
“And have me turn out a spoilt shithead like you?” Oliver taunted with a smirk. “They believe in working for what you want.”  
“Speaking of working,” Tommy prattled as he collected his phone from the desk. “Felicity's mom, where does she work again?”  
Oliver tensed. “Downtown,” he replied with a nonchalant shrug.  
“I was at Diamonds last week, don’t ask how I got in, and...” Tommy didn’t see Oliver's entire body stiffen. “...I'm pretty sure I saw her busing cocktails to the VIP section looking fine as all fuck. I snapped a picture...”

As soon as the word left Tommy’s mouth Oliver snatched the phone from his hands and began deleting.  
“How many pictures did you take?” Oliver hissed.  
“I don’t know, five, what the fuck are you doing?”  
Tommy reached for his phone but he couldn’t pry it from Oliver’s grip.

“You weren’t there, you didn’t see a fucking thing and you don’t tell anyone, got it?” Oliver warned tersely. After he was satisfied he’d deleted all the photos he handed the phone back.  
“What's the problem she wasn't stripping?” Tommy noted.  
“Felicity loves her mom and Donna isn't doing anything wrong,” Oliver stressed, Donna had been nothing but kind to him and he knew what she’d done to make sure her daughter could get the education Felicity deserved, “but you know if people find out where she works, what they'll say.”  
Tommy nodded, high school was full of vultures that didn’t wait for you to be dead before they pulled you apart. “I won't say a word,” he promised, “I like Felicity.”

Both boys nodded; deal made, and Oliver opened the bedroom door.  
“Ask her,” Tommy said as Oliver stepped out of his room. “She’ll say yes.”

**》》《《**

Oliver hadn’t expected to see Felicity at the wedding the next night so when she showed up, dressed and ready to walk hors d'oeuvres on silver platters around a crowd of wedding guests, his mood instantly lifted and during the lull between starters and the seated meal Oliver pulled Felicity aside while she carried the empty champagne tray.

“I didn't expect you to come,” he said softly, his voice almost lost in the hall which sat between the noisy crowd and the hustle of the kitchen behind them.  
“I gave you my word,” she answered with a lopsided shrug and smile.  
“Yesterday,” Oliver began with a smile as his hands nervously twitched at his sides. “I'm sorry I left.”  
She laughed softly as she brushed off his concerns with a gentle stroke down his arm. “Oh Oliver, could we just maybe forget that ever happened. I was stuck in some silly Hallmark movie for a moment while some dramatic 80s music played.”  
“Total eclipse of the heart?” Oliver quizzed, sandwiching her hand between his forearm and his other palm.  
“Fun fact that was written about vampires,” she added, her breathy laugh making soft tendrils of hair around her face float upwards.  
“How do you know shit like that?”  
“Who won the world baseball series in 1969?” she posed.  
Oliver answered immediately, “The New York Mets, it’s was a massive upset over Baltimore.”  
“Exactly,” she answered with a smile and a shrug. _Point made._

“Do you want to go to prom with me?” Oliver blurted out.  
In an empty passageway between the banquet room and the kitchen wasn’t exactly what Oliver had in mind; he was thinking more under the stars where it was just them, but he had to take the chance now.  
“What?” she laughed, airy and sweet and her cheeks became rosy with a blush.  
“I know you said you were leaving but what if you left on Sunday instead?” he asked as he fidgeted with his shirt cuffs.  
“Oliver you don't need to do that. I'm fine not going.”  
“Please. Go to prom with me,” he said warmly as he stepped closer and brushed his fingers down her spine.  
Her whole body shivered as she blinked up and saw his eyes; they were blue, full, the same eyes she’d known for years but it was like looking at them anew, something in them was different...  
“You really want me to go?” she breathed, so close that her words misted against his lips.  
He leaned in close to her ear, his nose grazing her cheek. “I really want you to go,” he whispered as his hand found the small of her back.

“Okay,” she sighed, her fingers trickling down his arm as her breath hitched in her throat.  
“Okay? Yes?” he asked as he pulled his head back, fine goosebumps raising under his shirt where her fingers brushed.  
“Yes, I’ll go to prom with you.”  
Her lips were luscious and full and if it wasn’t for the rush of servers flooding into the hall, he would have kissed her and he was almost certain she would have kissed him back.

**》》《《**

In the blink of an eye High School was done. Exams were over. Papers from the seniors' lockers were spilled into the corridors, as was tradition, and they waved goodbye to a place that had been a part of them for so long.

Oliver and Felicity never managed to get that close again in the lead up to the prom. It wasn’t that either of them wanted to, but Felicity spent her free time packing up her room for college and every time they had a moment alone, her mother would appear, crying, in her doorway.

But prom was finally upon them, and Oliver was going to tell her tonight... _Tell her everything_.

When Felicity told Oliver she was going to wear a red dress, he knew it would look amazing on her... but _amazing_ wasn't enough of a word to describe what he saw when she walked down the stairs to meet him.

It was red alright, a deep crimson in a brushed-satin fabric that captured the light and danced with it when she walked. The bodice sat snug around her torso, nipping in at the waist before it dropped like a cascading waterfall of draped fabric from mid-thigh. A delicate drape of chiffon around the bodice wove around her shoulders and clinched at the small of her back into a floating train. She looked ethereal, stunning, _perfect_.

Her hair was lifted off her face, pulled back with a side braid into a low, slightly messy, bun, which left her neck and décolletage beautifully naked. Muted makeup but a beautiful red lip and silver pendant earrings finished off the look, and Oliver stood, utterly speechless as Donna ran off to get some more tissues.

“Hi,” she said softly as he rose, slack-jawed, from the couch. When he didn't answer she blushed and it peached her throat. “Is it too much?” she asked, nervously wringing her hands together.  
“No,” he sighed, finally finding his voice as he blinked languidly. “You look perfect.”  
Felicity straightened his red bowtie and smiled at the matching red vest. “You scrub up pretty well,” she added as her palms smoothed over his shoulder and stilled at the convex of his chest, curving her fingers around them.

“Photos,” Donna sobbed as she returned with tissues in one hand and a camera in the other.  
“Mom,” Felicity groaned.  
“Oh I got this,” Oliver remarked as he plucked the corsage box from the table and offered it to Felicity. She smiled impishly at him as she slowly lifted the lid.

It was a corsage of 3 bloomed roses and a touch of green foliage between them, with black and silver ribbon woven through. It was simple but stunning and sitting beside it was a single rose boutonniere that matched.

“I hope it's okay,” Oliver spoke as he lifted it gently from the box.  
“It's perfect,” she breathed as she offered him her wrist.

The first touch of his fingers on the soft, delicate skin at the underside of her wrist had Oliver's body sighing and sent a shiver down Felicity's spine. He was gentle, and turned her hand slowly to tie it onto her wrist. He'd never really understood the point of a corsage until he realised it was like a statement that they were together. When she pinned the boutonniere onto him, the match was made; _he was with her_.

They posed for photos on the front porch for both mothers before they finally escaped in Oliver's brand new car; a freshly groomed white BMW.

“You finally got the car,” Felicity simpered as her fingers glided over the soft leather seats.  
“I have one more act of kindness to do according to my Mom, but they gave in a little early,” Oliver replied with a smile.

He glanced across the car at her as he pushed play on the CD player and the car filled with 80s music.

She clapped her hands happily as Oliver sat back and smiled. They were together and after tonight he wanted that to mean something even more than matching flowers.

**》》《《**

An hour in and despite the stares they were both getting and the quiet whispers that seemed to follow them around the opulently decorated ‘fire and ice' themed room.

Oliver glanced down at his watch as they took a seat on an empty table. “I'm just going to go to the bathroom,” Oliver remarked as he brushed his fingers down her bare arm.  
She nodded and Oliver left.

But he didn't go to the bathroom, he veered towards the front desk of the hotel instead.  
“I have a room booked,” Oliver said nervously as he tapped his fingers anxiously on the side of the oak desk.  
“Name?”  
“Oliver Queen.”

**》》《《**

Felicity wandered out through the reception room doors and headed towards the bathroom; a tiny knot of butterflies in her stomach meant she couldn't seem to sit still. The small train on her dress brushed against the marble floor of the glitzy hotel as her nude heels tapped out the pattern of her walk.

She glanced down the foyer for no particular reason but saw Oliver at a distance standing over by the reception desk.

She saw the employee place something on the desk and she saw Oliver feed whatever it was into his pocket.

But she scurried away just as he stepped back.

**》》《《**

The hotel room key felt like an anvil in his pocket. He hadn't told Felicity about because he didn't want her to feel any pressure. Whether or not they had sex would be up to her and hinting that he had a room upstairs just felt like he was expecting something.

But he got it for the solitude it would give them. A place where he could tell her how he felt, how he'd wanted the car to drive to Boston to spend time with her and take her anywhere she wanted to go before college put distance between them.

He wanted to pledge himself to her completely and promise her that they could make this work.

And then... he'd kiss her in a kiss neither one of them would take back.

**》》《《**

Felicity was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet with a permanent smile on her face. _Had Oliver gotten a room in the hotel?_ Her cheeks felt warm and flushed at the thought of it. _Would he ask her to go there? Would she say yes?_ Her lips rolled into each other before she chewed lightly on the lower one. _She would_.

 _Did Oliver feel the same way about her that she felt about him?_  
Her heartbeat skipped and her pulse quickened. But when the door to the bathroom opened, Felicity found herself like a statue hiding in a cubicle.

And then they spoke.  
“Did you see who Oliver Queen showed up with?” the first girl laughed as she checked her lipstick in the mirror.  
Felicity shrunk into herself as she gathered her draping red dress onto her lap.  
“That's a charity case,” the second voice said cheerfully and Felicity recognised it as McKenzie.  
“What?” the first girl Felicity couldn't place asked.  
“I heard his mom told him he had to ask her,” a third voice, McKayla, piped in as the sounds of makeup bags clinked on the slate vanity. “Something about him getting a new car before summer.”

Felicity balked at the suggestion that she was the final good deed Oliver had promised his mother, that was ridiculous, _wasn't it?_

“I heard no one else was going to take her,” McKenzie laughed as she dabbed powder onto her nose. “He actually asked McKenna first but then his mom happened and she was feeling sorry for the sad girl,” she added bluntly.  
“Did you see how she followed him around at school? It was so sad.”  
“Like a lost puppy,” McKayla laughed and the other two laughed along.

Felicity's brow furrowed and she very nearly burst out of the bathroom to tell them how utterly wrong that illustration was; _she was nobody's puppy._  
  
“Do you see her at all his games?”  
“One of the boys on the team told me that Oliver can't shake her and he's just nice to her because he doesn't want her to go all _Carrie_ on him.”  
“She totally would too.”  
“Let's hope she doesn't find out that Oliver got a room for him and McKenna and they're planning to sleep together after the crowning.”

 _That couldn't be true... could it?_  
He hadn't told her about getting a room, in fact he said he was going to the bathroom? Oliver had never lied to her before, _why now?_

“And she'll just be here by herself?”  
“Yup.”  
The three girls started laughing and Felicity shrunk deeper into herself.

“Oh my god, do you know what else I heard?” one said.  
“What?” another one chortled.  
“Oliver told McKenna and McKenna told me that her mom is a stripper at Diamonds and sometimes she even fucks for tips,” McKenzie said with a sneer wrapping around every word. “That's probably why she doesn't know who her daddy is.”

Felicity clamped her hand over her mouth. _He couldn't have told them... He wouldn't, but how did they know?_

“Oliver also told McKenna that she kissed him in her room, like just threw herself at him, and he was so grossed out he couldn't get out of her room fast enough.”

She added a second hand across her mouth as her eyes welled up and her head shook in disbelief. Oliver was the only person she ever told. _How could he?_  
_And McKenna?_ A girl who had hated her since she had moved there. The girl who would rush to use the class sharpener if she ever saw Felicity get up to use it and then take her sweet time. The girl who would make a point of sniggering under her breath every time she walked past.  
_Her_?  
The mean girl.

“So he's actually with McKenna?”  
“They're outside in the garden making out as we speak. They'll probably fuck in the car his date helped him get.”  
A chorus of laughter echoed off the wallpapered walls.  
“Well at least if she needs a job her mom can get her one as a stripper.”  
They carried on laughing as they left and the bathroom was plunged into an eerie silence where Felicity could practically hear of heart squeezing in her chest.

She didn't know how long she sat there shaking and trying to hold her tears back.  
She didn't want to believe Oliver would hurt her like that; but she saw his eyes the night she kissed him, and no one else knew about her mother...  
“Oh Oliver,” she sobbed into her hands.

She needed to find him. She needed to know the truth.  
_They're outside right now..._

Felicity headed for the balcony that overlooked the gardens. The topiaries were decorated with fairy lights and draped netting making it look like a fairy-tale but as Felicity looked out into the distance she saw something else.

**》》《《**

“What are we doing out here? What's the emergency,” Oliver grumbled. McKenna had dragged him out from the foyer about 5 minutes ago and they had wandered around outside ever since, under the guise that she needed his help.  
“It was getting hot in there,” she replied as her slender fingers fanned her face, dark hair spilling down her shoulders.  
“You said it was an emergency,” he huffed angrily.  
“It very almost was, I feel faint,” she sobbed as she looked over his shoulder and back towards the hotel.  
“Well sit down then,” he suggested brusquely as he nodded towards a stone bench. “I'm going to go back inside.”

And then she saw Felicity. She draped her arm over Oliver's shoulder and kissed him, her other hand caressing his back in a perfect show.

A show for an audience of one. One who saw the whole thing.

If she wasn’t 17 with her heart on her sleeve and the notion that her best friend of 8 years could hurt her so brutally, Felicity might have stayed and demanded to know what was going on.

But she _was_ 17.  
And she _was_ wearing her heart on her figurative sleeve.  
And for all she knew her best friend of 8 years had crushed her heart like it was made of glass.

Shattered.  
Scared.  
Heartbroken.

Felicity ran without stopping.

**》》《《**

Oliver pushed off McKenna and ran the back of his hand across his lips. “What the hell was that?” he spat.  
“What we both want, don’t deny it,” she answered as her fingertips trawled down his chest, where Felicity’s had been earlier in the night.  
He grabbed her at the wrists and threw them off him.  
“I have never been interested in you and I never will be,” he growled through clenched teeth before he stormed off, in search of Felicity.

He spent nearly 30 minutes looking for her until he was back out in the foyer, lost for ideas. He saw a student bouncer by the front doors and made a beeline for him.  
“Did you see a girl in a red dress with brown hair tied up leave?” Oliver asked, panic lacing his words  
“You Oliver?”  
“Yeah.”  
“She asked me to give you this.”  
He handed Oliver a note which he tore open and read before he crumpled it in his hands.

**》》《《**

He pulled his car into his parents’ driveway and ran towards Felicity’s house, the screwed up note still clutched in his clammy hands and his heart in his throat.

Her room was dark and the only light on in the whole house was the little one on the porch by the front door.

He thought about knocking, banging, on the door but when he pulled the note from his pocket, maybe she was right. Either way demanding to speak to her that night wouldn’t be good. He would go to her first thing in the morning, she wasn’t leaving until later on that evening.

He’d make this better.

  
But Oliver never got a chance to ask her because the next day Felicity was gone and all he was left with was her written goodbye.

_**Thanks for the night Oliver, but I realise now that you have feelings for me that I don’t have for you.** _

_**When I kissed you I thought I might feel something, but I didn’t. That one kiss we shared was a huge mistake and I don’t want to be held back by some wannabe baseball star. I want to be with someone smart.** _

_**I’m sorry. I just want better and better is in Boston.** _

_**Goodbye.** _

She’s even signed it the way she always did, the t crossing through both of the circles she dotted the i's with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could this all be settled with like 1 conversation? Yes.
> 
> Does it ever in these types of movies??? ;)


	4. Time changes people

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to pretend I know anything about the aviation industry or planes in general... but let's be honest when are these movies ever hyper realistic and isn't that part of the allure? Lol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This...keeps...getting...longer.

  **December 22, 2018**

 _Flight Cancelled_  
_Flight Cancelled_  
_Flight Cancelled_

Felicity stared at the departure board over her shoulder in the departures line and audibly groaned. Every single flight out of New York was grounded. _Every single one._ In fact, according to the reports, every flight in the upper half of the country was grounded, ‘ _Bedlam_ ’ was an understatement.

Those in the queue ahead of her must have felt the same air of despair as shoulders slumped forward, babies’ cries resonated and toddlers threw fits on the scuffed linoleum floor. They weren’t going anywhere.

She didn’t know why she stayed in line, but she did; maybe in the very remote chance that fate would somehow intervene and the blizzard outside would somehow let up just long enough to clear the runway and hers would be the lucky flight that got off the ground.

It was a pity Felicity was far too smart to actually believe in that possibility because, even if a flight _could_ take off, judging by the national news scrolling across the billboard-sized monitors, it had nowhere to land.

Regardless, when Felicity was standing in front of the check in staff, she desperately wanted to hear something other than ‘ _I’m Sorry’._

“I’m sorry Ms,” the petite redhead with a rouged-lip looked down at Felicity’s ticket, “…Smoak, but your flight is one that has been cancelled.”  
“Is there any way I can get to Starling City? Anything?” Felicity pleaded as she gripped the handle of her luggage and wished for a miracle.

Too bad miracles weren’t real.  
“You could take the train down to DC, fly across to San Diego and take a Grey Hound up to Starling.”  
Felicity didn’t need a map to decide that route would take literal days, by which time her mother would have disowned her for missing yet _another_ holiday and she would have been fired for not making it to the presentation that was, in fact, her real reason for the jaunt to the city she’d left over a decade before.  
“Nothing that wouldn’t take a week?” Felicity asked with furrowed lips and a crinkled nose.  
The redhead tapped a finely manicured nail against her painted lip before she leaned over the oak counter and lowered her voice to an almost whisper.

“I might know a way, I go on my break in,” she paused to check her watch and Felicity looked around as though she was in the midst of a clandestine meeting, “20 minutes, meet me in Jonny’s Sports Bar near the Centre Food Court in Terminal B.”

**》》《《**

Felicity ordered a diet soda at the bar and took a seat in a booth in a dimly lit corner, a move which she realised added something to this whole _intrigue_ prose she seemed to have embroiled herself in.

She pulled out some papers from her bag and set about trying to study them. The pitch on the 24th was what Felicity had spent the last three years of her career working on and with the right funding and the right place to set the trials, this would also be her legacy, but all she could hear was her mother sobbing down the telephone if she had to break the news to her that she wouldn’t make it home for Christmas; the irony that her mother, a proud Jewish woman, placed a lot of importance on making it home for this particular holiday was not lost on Felicity. But, the latest squeeze, a man by the name of Quinten Lance, wasn’t Jewish and Felicity supposed that her mother might want the show of solidarity, or _something_ … either way, if she didn’t make it home _this_ year there were bound to be ramifications; personal and professional.

She huffed as she closed her compendium folder and took a sip of her soda while she looked for something to distract her. The various TVs were playing different sports and Felicity’s eyes landed on the one closest to her.

Baseball.

She hadn’t actually watched a game in _years_ , though she’d kept a watching brief on some of the comings and goings. It wasn’t a game, but appeared to be a highlight reel of some of the most memorable plays and players of the sport over the last 12 months, and it seemed she was just in time to see Number 3 on that list;

 ** _One of the most celebrated power hitters of our generation and arguably the best defensive third baseman in the game_ **the closed captions read as they scrolled across the screen, **_drafted at 20…_ **she glanced away, choosing to stare at a set of carved initials on the pine table instead, because she knew exactly who they were talking about.

But her head betrayed her when it swivelled back towards the television and her eyes, even more so, when they looked up just as his face appeared.

**_Oliver Jonas Queen, 30. Boston Red Sox_ **

His hair was cropped shorter and his jaw was now sprinkled with a stubble that gave him a sort of air of ruggedness in that permanent 5’o’clock shadow.

Felicity felt her whole body tense as the blue eyes that had once been so familiar to her stared down at her in HD while his feats scrolled across the bottom of the screen, her eyes pulling out titbits of information, **_one of the youngest…great baserunner…9 seasons under his belt…Calvin Klein model with mesmerizing eyes and great hair._**

Felicity scoffed outwardly at the last comment. “Typical.”

At least her mother had long since moved out of that suburban house near Starling Oaks so she absolutely wouldn’t have to accidentally run into the _superstar_ – that was if he even found time in his busy schedule for such mundane things as returning home for Christmas. Felicity could hear the snark in her own mind and honestly she was surprised by it; all these years later the thought of him still made her angry.

She wasn’t allowed any more time to think on that when the redhead approached, still wearing her navy-blue uniform and name tag, _Mandy_.

“So, do you have good news for me?” Felicity asked as Mandy slid into the other side of the booth.  
“You looked well-dressed,” Mandy started as she did a quick head-to-toe precursory glance at what she could see of Felicity anyway.  
Felicity looked down at her Chanel suit in a baby-pink, the billowing, nearly-sheer, ivory blouse, and the nude pumps that went along with it. She wouldn’t ordinarily dress that way to fly, but she’d come straight from the office and to be taken seriously in her industry at her age she needed to look a certain way. Her PA once told her that the ponytail and the perfectly lined pout made her seem unapproachable to men; frankly Felicity wasn’t bothered by that – _at all_.

“Uh, thanks,” Felicity remarked with a bemused smile.  
“So my fiancé has a plane that he flies tourists around, sightseeing, you know?” Mandy continued as she folded her arms on the table. “He’s willing to fly a few people where they need to go, including Starling City.”  
Felicity sat back against the padded pleather backrest. “How much?”  
“It’ll cost you two grand, half now, half when we land. The plane carries 6, me, him, some honeymoon couple and some old guy, the last seat is yours if you want it.”

It sounded like an absolutely terrible idea.  
Felicity glanced down at her folder – if she missed this presentation, she could kiss the last 3 years of work goodbye.

“What’s the catch?” she asked, glancing back up at the TV, happy to see the reel of baseball highlights replaced with what looked like a fight during an ice hockey game.  
“It’s a small plane so,” she glanced down at Felicity large suitcase near her feet, “that can’t come, you’ll need to FedEx it from here, but you can take what you need for a few days.”  
Felicity nodded, that didn’t sound all that bad, she was staying with her mother so worst case scenario meant she had to wear cocktail dresses and yoga pants from her mom’s wardrobe until her suitcase showed up, and as long as she packed a suitable outfit for the presentation, she wouldn’t have to worry about anything else. _Definitely doable._

“Anything else?” Felicity queried.  
“It’s a long flight, so we have to make one stop to refuel,” Mandy replied as she held up a finger, for some reason deciding Felicity needed the visual air. “In South Dakota.”  
Felicity considered the idea, and behind the sound of a thousand alarm bells ringing in her head that it all sounded like the beginning of a terrible horror movie, she slid her hand across the table and gave her response. “I’m in.”

Mandy shook her hand and stood up from the table. “My shift finishes in 3 hours, you can ride with me over to the airport.”  
“It’s not here?”  
“It’s at a private airstrip nearby, less ‘red tape’,” she remarked as she made air quotes with her fingers.  
_This just got better and better._  
“Okay, great,” Felicity nodded as she buried down the little voice telling her this was probably single-handedly her worst idea ever.

Because she needed to get to Starling.  
This was her ticket, _and hey,_ if the storm had let up in 3 hours then it would be a non-event anyway, _right_?

**》》《《**

It didn’t let up.  
In fact it got way, way worse and a short, but harrowing commute later Felicity was standing in the tiny reception area of a Scenic Flights airstrip with a duffle bag of the essentials handing over $1,000 dollars to a guy in a leather pilot jacket.

At least his face was plastered on the walls around the dinky little waiting room of sorts, so he seemed to be a legitimate pilot and a quick search on her phone didn’t show up any serial killer references, _so… this would be fine._

She looked around the small group and was genuinely surprised how at ease the other three passengers looked. The older business man just looked like he was out for a little jaunt, no big deal, and the honeymooning couple seemed … _excited_.

Felicity had already excused herself to the small, single-cubical bathroom, and left a slightly strange voicemail for her mother with random pieces of information littered through what sounded like a goodbye ‘letter’ before she told her she’d see her soon… _hopefully_.

**》》《《**

Nearly four hours into the flight and Felicity was honestly surprised not one of the passengers had thrown up. _Maybe this wasn’t the worst idea ever?_ The business man was snoring with a copy of People magazine on his lap on the seat beside Felicity and the honeymooning couple in the row opposite were making pretty awful canoodling sounds that could be heard even over the constant hum of the engines.

Mandy had been nattering away from the front passenger seat and while Felicity found her reasonably sweet, the constant chatter mixed with the turbulence was all too much and about an hour ago Felicity had closed her eyes and pretended to sleep – _maybe the old guy had the right idea._

It was surprisingly less bumpy at the altitude they were flying, but she did hear Mandy warn that as they started the descent in about 40 minutes into South Dakota things might get a ‘little’ rocky.

Felicity plucked an eye open when Mandy tapped her on the knee.  
“You doing okay?” she asked loudly – far louder than needed, but it was no luxury jet.  
Felicity nodded but Mandy decided to unbuckle herself and shimmy on through the gap between the seats anyway.  
“I think we have some sick bags in here,” she said as she began to rummage through the compartment between the seats.  
“Honey,” the pilot, Jeff, called as he reached one hand around Felicity while he tried to grab Mandy’s shoulder, “you don’t need to go looking, the people are fine.”  
“Really, I’m fine, and they’ll probably just throw up on each other and still be in love,” Felicity said, nodding her head towards the love birds who were too besotted with each other to notice.  
“Oh, I know I put them in here last week, I just…” Mandy kept nattering on as she opened the compartment under Felicity’s feet.  
“Shit Mandy, leave the poor woman…”  
He never got to finish his words when Mandy found what her boyfriend had been trying to hide.

“What the FUCK is THIS?” she yelled as she plucked a white brick out from under Felicity’s seat. Her voice was so shrill and loud that the old guy woke up and the two lovebirds finally stopped kissing.  
“Baby, it’s nothing, put it back,” Jeff pleaded as he turned in his seat to look directly at Felicity and the utterly ropable Mandy.  
“Don’t _baby_ me,” she scathed as she pointed the brick at him.  
Felicity had very little street cred, but even _she_ knew what that was – cocaine.  
“You promised me you weren’t doing this anymore, you lying piece of shit,” Mandy raged before she reached over Felicity and slapped Jeff clear across the face.

The plane jumped and everyone screamed before Jeff steadied it back up again.  
“Just put it back, we’ll talk about it later,” he begged  
“No we’ll fucking talk about it now.”  
“Maybe not here,” Felicity pleaded as she white-knuckled the armrest.  
But Mandy was so fired up that she clearly forgot they were defying gravity at that point in time and, as she lifted the brick of cocaine up over her head, Felicity knew exactly what she was going to do, but her body couldn’t react fast enough to stop it.

She smacked Jeff with the brick, catching him on the arm as he raised it to, smartly, protect his head. The clear plastic wrapping caught on one of his metal buttons and when Mandy yanked it back up the contents of fine, white powder, coated Felicity’s lap and the left side of her body.

“Shit, Jesus, Mandy,” Jeff yelled.  
Felicity wanted to yell too, but she was too scared to breathe let alone open her mouth.  
“Oh god, I’m so sorry,”  
The plane was dipping and diving and everyone on board was in some sort of state of panic.  
“Land the fucking plane,” Felicity said sternly and the cabin fell nearly quiet.

“I know somewhere I can put down about a mile away.”  
Felicity brushed her shoulder, not that it did much good.

**》》《《**

They landed about 10 minutes later, it was bumpy and if Felicity wasn’t trying to keep her mouth as tightly closed as possible, she likely would have been screaming.

They landed in a field not far from the interstate with the nose pointing towards a dull glow of a town in the far distance.

“You ah, you got,” Jeff the pilot started as Felicity teetered on the uneven, hoof-trodden ground.  
“I what?” Felicity snapped, “have a Class A drug all over my clothes? Yes thank you, I’m aware of that.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and began to walk towards the drone sounds of the interstate.

It was dark and while Felicity’s eyes were trying their best to adjust to the heavy blanket of night (given it was after 9pm), the thick shadows and the uneven ground which was lightly blanketed in snow, was making in nearly impossible to walk with any dignity.

But dignity would become the least of Felicity’s worries.

When she saw what looked like a large bus approaching a hundred feet away, she had the wild idea that she just might be able to make it to the road before it went past, flag it down and go wherever those people were heading. But, a few strides in Felicity’s knee knocked against the edge of something which proceeded to tip her off balance and straight into a large, concrete water trough.

“Guess that takes care of the cocaine,” someone said.

**》》《《**

One borrowed outfit from the hippy-honeymooner (a pair of denim overalls with hand-painted flowers and a cable knit cardigan) later and Felicity was sitting in the front cab of a Ford truck with a lovely elderly couple that were heading back into town after visiting their son, who had a farm not too far back from where Felicity had hitched a ride.

_Probably the same one that now had a light airplane in one of its back fields._

“Will you be staying long in Haven Brook Falls?” the lady beside her asked as Felicity tried to blot the running mascara from her cheeks.  
“I’m just looking for the airport,” Felicity replied as she leaned her head against the window.  
“Well they’ve recently had a refurbishment, it’s a right little hive now.”  
Felicity offered a slight smile and a small nod.

**》》《《**

_Hive_ was a gross exaggeration.

The airport/information centre building was no larger than a 7-Eleven and while the ‘Welcome to Haven Brook Falls’ sign above the automatic doors looked pretty new, nothing about that flood of white florescent lights said ‘Hive’, it was practically a ghost town.

Felicity stepped through the sliding doors and the _ding_ that announced her presence made her last nerve jump.

She just needed to get home and put this insanity behind her.

Finally life, in the form of a pleasant older women with a cherub and rosy face behind a ticketing counter, waved her over.  
“Welcome to Haven Brook Falls. My name is Trudy and what can I do you for?” she asked as Felicity approached the veneer desk.  
“I need to get to Starling, Washington,” Felicity puffed, her entire body shaking from the frigid temperature while the tiny glowing-red heat-lamp fastened to the wall above the counter did absolutely nothing.  
“I'm sorry ma'am all flights are grounded,” Trudy chirped happily.  
“It's not snowing here though,” Felicity sighed as she glanced just outside the window behind them to what looked like a perfectly clear runway.  
Trudy looked out the window too and nodded. “Ned is a great plough driver.”  
“Okay, so Ned has done his job. You must have something going somewhere,” Felicity shivered as she blew slightly warm air into her hands.  
“Well we have a flight to Lincoln leaving in,” Trudy tapped her fingers across a keyboard so old the buttons stuck, “thirteen hours.”  
_Lincoln was backwards but it was a hub and maybe they would have flights to Starling._

“But that still won't get you to Starling I'm afraid?” Trudy added with a sombre shake of her head.  
“Why, no Ned in Lincoln?”  
The joke made the woman chuckle and, surprisingly, her cheeks became even rosier. “I'm afraid most of where you want to go is under 5 feet of snow. Turns out the blizzard that hit the northeast was a twin and the other one is blanketing the upper west. With little Nebraska caught right in the middle of it all. Isn't that exciting?”

“That's not the word I would use,” Felicity sighed as she ran a hand through her bedraggled hair.  
“Sorry dear, we even had a big plane have to land at the military base about an hour away, only road they could take was here. With ice on the wings, wasn't safe for it to fly back to Lincoln. Maybe this hoopla will be all for naught and the flights will start up again in the morning,” the older woman cheered.  
Felicity smiled weakly, _was she coming down from the cocaine she undoubtedly inhaled?_ She supposed it could have been the near death experience of landing; but she was going to pretend that never happened until she was sitting in her therapist's office in the New Year.

“So I guess I need somewhere to sleep, don't suppose there is a Hilton nearby?” Felicity snorted; a laugh she hadn’t made in years.  
“Oh this is ticketing only, you'll have to wait over in the line for visitor information,” Trudy advised as she pointed towards a row of superfluous line dividers in front of a similar veneer desk.

“There's no one there,” Felicity replied.  
Trudy tapped away on her keyboard before she flashed Felicity a wide enough smile that she saw gums. “Pop over and someone will come by.”

Felicity picked up her duffle bag and the plastic bag with her dripping-wet, cocaine-laced clothes and shunted her body to the line a few feet away.

She stopped at the _wait here_ sign and let her shoulders slump as she exhaled. She caught her reflection in the window to the side of her and for a hot minute Felicity wondered who the bag lady outside was...until she realised that was her.

_God she needed a warm shower and a strong coffee._

Trudy, the same woman from before walked over a few moments later and stood behind the information desk before she lifted away the ' _be back soon_ ' sign.  
“Wait, you're the information help desk too?” Felicity gaped, as she pressed two fingers into her pounding temple.  
Trudy nodded cheerfully. "And I run the coffee cart," she said as she pointed towards a wooden cart with a red and white striped canopy and a wooden sign that read "Coff-fe-fe"

“I don't get it,” Felicity remarked dryly.  
“Oh it's a play on words.”  
“But what words?”  
“I expect it doesn't make much sense to a big city girl like you.” Felicity looked down at her clothes and managed a laugh. How any of what she was wearing said 'city girl' was beyond her. “So, what can I help you with?”

Felicity looked over to where she had just spoken with Trudy by _Ticketing_ before she blinked back to _Information_... _was this the drugs? Was she losing her mind?_ There was that one time in college when she accidentally ate pot brownies and that time when Oliver tried to make them... she stopped herself short when she realised how easily he’d slipped back into her subconscious even though she'd packed him away years ago.

“Uh, do you have any hotels?” Felicity asked, too tired to try and make sense of this anymore.  
“Oh not around these parts, but we do have a lovely bed and breakfast though, Marty and Betty are just lovely folk, it’s right on the Falls Road, it has a stunning view out there,” Trudy prattled as though she was navigating the scenery with her mind.  
That sounded quite nice. “Okay can I get a room there?”  
Trudy shook her head sadly. “Oh I'm afraid not, fully booked out with an airplane that had to land in the military base...”  
“About an hour away,” Felicity finished.  
Trudy looked up, surprised, “You know about that?”  
“You…uh…” Felicity looked back towards _Ticketing_ again. This was absolutely the same lady, _wasn’t it?_  
She pressed her thumb deeper into her temple. _Was she losing her fucking mind?_

“Any other places to stay?” Felicity asked wryly as she began to sway on her water-logged Jimmy Choos.  
“There is the Motel Six about half a block from here. Nice enough,” Trudy remarked as she went back to tapping away.  
That was close and Felicity could do _nice enough_ for one night.

But Trudy wasn’t finished selling it just yet. “Great little bar across the road, if you visit make sure you tell the owner Trudy sent you, they have the best steak dinner in town.”  
“Okay so I can get a room there then, do I pay here or there?” Felicity asked as she began to rummage through her back looking for her wallet.  
“Oh well shoot, I just gave away the last room,” Trudy remarked before she blushed as though _shoot_ was the cuss word to end all cuss words.  
Felicity looked around wildly, frigid droplets of water coming off her hair like a wet dog.  
“Who? I'm the only one here.”

“That gentlemen over there by the entertainment area?”  
Felicity turned to where Trudy was pointing; it was a cubby-sized alcove with one lucky claw machine, an air hockey table and a bar leaner with two chairs alongside a vending machine.

The man she was talking to was hunched over a can of soda he was nursing like an expensive glass of whiskey. He had his back to her and was wearing a large hooded sweater under an expensive looking navy pea coat with a baseball cap pulled low.

“He seems like a lovely guy, maybe he'll share with you,” Trudy jauntily carried on speaking as Felicity impaled her finger into the side of her head.  
The man must had felt Trudy looking over at him because as Felicity began to speak, he started to turn. “I'm not sharing a room with a man I don’t... Fuck. You have got to be kidding me.”  
She knew that side profile _anywhere_.

“Give it to me,” Felicity announced after she’d walked over and stood beside the man with one hand on her hip and the other outstretched, waiting.  
Oliver Queen choked on a mouthful of soda until he managed to cough it down his throat.  
“Wow the locals are friendly here,” he remarked, walking his eyes up from the nude stilettos to the hand-painted sunflowers.”  
“Not that you idiot,” Felicity scoffed. “Your room. Give me your motel room I'm taking it.”  
Oliver cleared his throat and swivelled in his seat. There was something remarkably familiar about the woman with dappled lipstick and soggy blonde hair. “Wait what?”  
“You got the last motel room. I want it. Hand it over.”

His eyes walked up over her full lips and narrowed in on the azure irises that were staring him down; _it couldn’t be…_  
“I only know two women who ever spoke to me like that and you aren't my mother,” he commented as he stood up and tapped the empty soda can on the leaner. “Felicity?”

The hand that she had left outstretched fell to her side and fidgeted with the pocket of her oversized cardigan. He still said her name the same – not that she would have expected it to sound markedly different – but, aside from the slightly deeper voice, she could have sworn she was sitting in her bedroom helping him study for an algebra exam 15-odd years ago.

“So fame and hedonism haven't completely addled your brain. Good to know,” she noted as she forced herself a step backwards, uncomfortable with how close he seemed now he was standing. “Now hand over the room. Please,” she added the last word with gritted teeth.  
She watched him roll his tongue around his mouth as he contemplated, a habit which he still hadn’t lost. “Where am I supposed to sleep?”  
“How should I know?” she shrugged blithely and Oliver couldn’t help but notice Felicity had changed from the memory of the girl he had been holding onto for so long. He tapped the side of his dark-wash jeans, feeling the shape of his wallet. _So long_. “You're a big boy, figure it out.”  
He would have believed her cavalier attitude if it wasn’t for the fact her hand had gravitated from her waist to scratch a spot just behind her ear; the place she always touched when she was feeling nervous. _Maybe she wasn’t so different after all._

“I'm not giving you my room Felicity,” he answered, a split second twitch of his dimple that went unnoticed. “I haven't seen you in like 10 years.”  
_He knew it was 12._  
“Twelve,” she corrected, “and so what? You owe me.”  
“For what?” he retorted; _he hadn’t broken her heart with a half-page note._  
Felicity’s lips pursed and when she realised she had put her hand to the back of her neck she tore it down abruptly. “Are you going to give me your room or not?” she asked, keeping her hands tightly nailed to her side.

Oliver picked up the soda can and chucked it a few feet into a trash can. “Not.”

Felicity huffed out a curt exhale before she turned on her heels and started to walk away.  
“But,” Oliver continued as he caught her arm. Her first instinct was to yank her arm away, but there was a moment – a fleeting moment – where she wanted nothing more than to lay her hand over the top of his and leave it there. She did neither, and instead turned to look at him while his hand naturally fell away. “We can share,” Oliver added, a familiar softness in his tone.

“I'm not sharing a room with you,” she countered as she pulled her shoulders back and tried – in vain – to not have her height pale so much in comparison to his.  
“It's a twin room. Two beds,” Oliver offered as two large, thick digits poked up into the air.

 _Those changed_ , Felicity found herself thinking as she studied the length of breadth of his middle finger. Granted, Oliver had always had big hands – in fact he could easily hold both of hers with one of his – but the ridges were more defined now and they were broad and long and ever-so-slightly rough at the pad. She caught herself before her thoughts went down a path she would _not_ entertain and when all was said and done, she was out of options.

And, if she was honest, sharing a room with someone who she’d once considered a friend wasn’t the worst of all the decisions she’d made in the past 24 hours.  
“Okay fine,” she gave in. “But I get the first pick of beds.”  
Oliver leaned down and collected his bag. “If I remember correctly, you’ll take the one furthest from the door because it’s the only logical choice,” he said, with very little given away in his expression, except that he was mimicking her.

She wanted to object because Felicity hated the way he knew her. _But_ she also wanted the bed furthest away from the door.  
“It is logical, intruders will kill you first,” she quipped as she followed him towards the door.  
“Oh I know, Felicity, you never had a problem with logical.” Now _that_ had a little bite to it.

**》》《《**

  
As soon as they stepped outside the automatic doors, the freezing chill in the air had Felicity wrapping her arms tightly around her body as she shivered out a chattered, "Fuck.”  
Oliver shrugged his coat off his shoulders and slung around her small frame and it completely swallowed her.

“Didn't you bring anything warmer?” he asked as he tugged a beanie from the side of his large, rolled duffle bag.  
“Of course I did, I'm not an idiot,” Felicity retorted. “It's in a suitcase on its way to Starling without me.”

She saw the bemusement on his face before he folded the beanie onto her head and pulled it down over her frozen ears; but she was in no mind to explain her predicament; especially not to him.

The walk wasn’t a long one and just as they reached the hotel, with one busted bulb on the sign which made it read **_Mo el 6_** , a small flurry of snow started falling. Oliver disappeared into the small reception to collect the key while Felicity eyed up the snacks in the vending machine. She was starving.

“I'm pretty sure she thinks I picked up some homeless woman,” Oliver remarked as he passed back through the door that chimed. “Give her a little wave so she knows you're not here under duress,” he added with a smirk lifting his smile lopsided.

“Do they know who you are?” Felicity asked as she fed a dollar into the machine.  
“She asked me to autograph a baseball so I'm pretty sure she has no clue,” he sarcastically replied.  
Felicity punched in the number for the packet of potato chips that were calling to her. She collected them from the tray once they dropped and then opened the reception door a crack on her way past. “Don't worry, he's paid me for the night so I won't make any noise leaving late tonight,” she said with a smile and a wave.

She closed the door again to the shocked face of the middle aged woman behind the desk before she plucked the key from Oliver's hand and set off to find room 12.  
“Thanks for that,” Oliver bemoaned, “my agent is going to have a heart attack.”  
“Oh give me a break,” Felicity ribbed as she climbed the steel-grate stairs carefully in her pumps. “Name one time a sex scandal has actually ever damaged a _male_ pro athlete?”  
Oliver opened his mouth to answer but when he couldn't come up with one, his mouth promptly closed again.  
“Exactly,” Felicity chimed.

**》》《《**

Room 12 was simple, the wallpaper was a little faded and the blinds looked like relics from a bygone era, but it had a small kitchenette with a tiny fridge that keep a dull and constant hum and a TV that probably got at least 3 channels.

“What are you doing here anyway?” Felicity asked as she made her way straight to the bathroom.  
“Plane trouble forced it to land and now we're grounded. And you?” Oliver replied closing the door with a soft click.  
“Don't ask,” came her quick response as she set the plug in the sink and started filling it.

“You look great by the way,” Oliver commented as he dropped his bag on the right side of the bed. “Never figured you for a hand-painted flower overalls kind of girl but people change I guess.”

Felicity walked out of the bathroom with a wrinkled nose and an arched eyebrow. “These aren't mine.”  
“I don't understand,” he quipped.  
She collected the bag of soggy clothes and trundled back into the bathroom. “Long story.”  
“Sounds like you need a drink,” Oliver said as the sound of cupboards opening and closing drew Felicity back out of the bathroom.  
“What are you looking for? A mini bar. I don't think they have one in a motel six,” she teased as an airy laugh left off her lips before she could stop it.

But it did stop, rather abruptly, when she noticed something else in the room.  
“Wait a minute,” she paused, “where are the twin beds?” she asked, only then noticing the queen bed in the room.  
“They're probably just pushed together,” Oliver assured her as he found a reasonably clean glass and poured himself some water from the tap.

Felicity dropped to her knees and lifted up the floral comforter to reveal one, solid bed base. “It's not,” she sighed as her head dropped to the mattress. _Because of course it wasn't._

Oliver looked just as surprised by the discovery and he set his water aside to walk over to the phone. “I'll ring down,” he stated while he was already dialling.

By the time Felicity went into the bathroom and drowned her musty smelling, cocaine-addled clothes into the sink and returned to the bedroom, Oliver was just hanging up the phone.

“They can't change it,” he grumbled as he raked his nails over his scalp.  
“I guess you're sleeping on the couch then,” she smirked as she picked up his bag and dropped it onto the floor.

“That couch?” Oliver chortled sarcastically as he pointed to the only thing that vaguely resembled a couch - a sage-green, velvet armchair. He doubted he could even sit in it comfortably let alone trying to fold his 6ft 2, 190 pound frame into it to sleep.

She was having way too much fun with this predicament and Oliver noted the smile she was trying to hide as it flirted with one corner of her lips.  
“The floor then,” she decided, biting the inside of her cheek to stop from laughing. The prospect was nothing less than he deserved.

 _Two can play at that game, Oliver_ smirked. “I’m not sleeping on the floor, you sleep on the floor,” he argued.

They stared at each other for a time that would have felt uncomfortable for anyone else in the room until Oliver smiled, picked up his bag and put it back on the bed.  
“You can sleep wherever you like but I'm sleeping right here,” he said matter-of-factly as he slapped that corner of the mattress.  
“Fine,” Felicity huffed as she put her bag on the other side. “But you should know I've been taking self-defence classes for 5 years so don't even _think_ about encroaching.”  
A broad smile. “That won't be a problem.”  
“Good.”  
“Great.”  
“Fine.”

“Are you going to explain why you're washing clothes in the bathroom sink?” Oliver enquired when the silence became deafening.  
“No,” she answered dryly. “Do you think we can turn the heater on in here?”

Oliver tried for the next ten minutes to get the panel heater to turn on, to no avail, before he – for the second time that night – rung down to reception. He found Felicity shortly after, wringing her clothes out in the tiny bathtub.

“Reception says they’ll have someone up in a few minutes with some extra blankets, but they can’t fix the heater until the morning,” Oliver explained as he filled out the door frame with his brawny shoulders. He'd taken off his jacket while Felicity was in the bathroom and the sleeves of his navy crew neck were pulled as taut as the fabric could get over his biceps. She noted it before forcing herself to look away.

“The morning?” Felicity mumbled as she slung her ivory blouse over the first railing of the heated towel rack.  
He offered her a genuinely apologetic smile. “The repair guy lives out of town and the road is blocked with snow; morning is the best they can do.” He had tried, even offering to pay a late call out fee if that was the problem. “You can borrow some warmer clothes and we can…”  
“We can what?” she asked spinning around with her dripping pencil skirt clutched between her hands.  
Oliver had her rattled and he found a few moments of amusement in that fact before he leaned his back against the doorway and flexed his arms as he crossed them over his chest. “Share body heat,” he said huskily.  
“You're fucking insane,” she bickered before she hung her skirt up too.  
“I wasn’t talking about sex,” Oliver claimed. “Don’t flatter yourself, I haven’t thought about you like that in years,” he simpered. “But if you don’t want to freeze to death in a motel six in the middle of nowhere you’ll sleep with me –“ she looked over her shoulder at him with her brows arched toward her hairline, “ _in_ the bed with me,” he corrected.

There wasn't much option.  
“Fine,” she huffed.  
“Good.”  
“Great.”

A knock on the door stopped the fruitless game and Oliver put the extra blankets that were delivered onto the bed before her threaded his jacket back on.  
“Now come on, let's go,” he called out to her in the bathroom.  
“Go where? it’s freezing out there.”  
Just opening the door had filled the room with a chill.  
Oliver zipped up the front of his jacket and put the hood over his head. “Across the road to the bar so we can warm ourselves up from the inside.”  
She cocked her head to the side and pouted. “Oh that’s a fabulous idea, get drunk.”  
“Suit yourself,” he shrugged, “stay here then, doing that.” He nodded towards her before he started to laugh.  
“What is so funny?”  
“Honestly, if you could see yourself right now, barefoot, in denim overalls doing laundry in a bathroom sink.” He made himself laugh harder. “All you really need is to be pregnant.”  
She dropped her pink jacket in the bathtub with the _splosh_.

“Fine, you owe me a drink,” she said while she put on the jacket he'd given her earlier.  
“You say that like you really believe it,” Oliver disputed before they walked out of the room together.

**》》《《**

Oliver set the drink, a low ball tumbler of vodka and lime, down in front of Felicity with the paper napkin still underneath before he slumped down into the hard oak chair in the far corner of the bustling bar, come steakhouse, come pool room. He took a slow drink of the tap beer as he watched her over the rim of his glass, stirring her little black straw idly through the ice in her drink.

There was every emotion stirring inside him; nostalgia for a friendship he'd never been able to clone with anyone else, attraction that bubbled on the surface and was solely due to the shape she cut (even in that eclectic getup) – or at least that was what he was telling himself; and finally a deep and foreboding pain that he'd managed to disregard for some time and that didn't come alone; anger was its every-growing twin.

When she looked up from her glass Oliver glanced to the left and became suddenly interested in a poster for cigarettes.

“So what’s your story?” He asked after dragging his eyes back to the table.  
“Heading home for the holidays; ended up here,” she answered vaguely. “You?”  
“Pretty much the same.” His answer was just as vague and they both sat in silence for a few lingered moments until Oliver spoke up again. “Of all the airports in the world, you show up in this one.”  
She took a sip through her straw, her softly plumped lips forming around the thin plastic as her eyes instinctively glanced up. Her cheeks hollowed and when she blinked her dark lashes fanned over her pale cheeks.  
“Fate’s a bitch,” she offered as less of an answer and more of an observation.

“So you made it to the Major League?” she commented when the silence became too loud. Whatever happened between them she would always admire his determination and discipline.  
“I did,” he answered with a slow, bobbing nod. He took another drink and felt the chilly condensation leak over his fingers as he kept a hold of the glass. “And you graduated valedictorian from MIT?” Whatever happened between them he was proud of her achievements, he always would be. When she looked at him, obviously curious as to how he knew, Oliver clarified, “Your mom told me.”

She wasn't surprised, Donna never really understood what happened between the two friends, and even after all these years that was something Felicity mostly kept to herself.  
“I did,” she finally said with her eyes tacked to the table.  
“Looks like we both got what we wanted,” Oliver added, threads of sombreness woven in his words.  
Just like they were in her answer. “Looks like it.”

He'd glanced at her hand a few times, she wore a silver bangle and a dainty ruby ring sat on her middle finger on the left, but there was something noticeably absent.  
“Are you married or?” he enquired, nonchalantly taking a glug of beer.  
She lifted her left hand and flipped it. “No, no _or_ either,” she answered. “What about you, did the thing with McKenna last happily ever after?” Felicity bit the end of her straw to stop herself from saying anything more.  
“Oh yeah, she has 5 children, 3 of which are mine,” he replied with a deadpan expression.  
She stabbed an ice cube and shrugged. “Oh well, that’s great.”

Oliver let the lie hang there for a few moments while he took another drink. “I’m kidding,” he admitted as he set he glass back down. “There was no _thing_ with McKenna. The last I heard Tommy said she was working on cruise ships as a hula hoop instructor.” Ironically, that wasn't a lie. “No kids, no significant other,” he clarified bluntly. His life didn't really allow for either; or at least that's what he told himself.

They were both single and hapless in love it seemed.

“I like the hair,” Oliver casually mentioned before he snacked from the bowl of pretzels the bartender had offered him.  
“I heard blondes have more fun,” Felicity answered sardonically.  
“It suits you.”  
The tension between them was palpable. There wasn't just one elephant in the room; there was a whole herd.

Before either of them could fill the silence with another idle question, a young blonde with a thin waist and a full chest skipped up to Oliver with a giddy laugh on her perfectly lined mouth. “Oh my god are you Oliver Queen? _The_ Oliver Queen who plays for the Red Sox?” she giggled, bouncing blonde curls floating off her shoulders as her tiny tee barely kept her breasts inside.

  
Oliver’s lips furrowed and his cheeks blushed; he was embarrassed by the attention, despite it not been a new thing.

"I am,” he replied, a pleasing smile reserved for press junkets and fans pressed onto his face.  
“Can I get your autograph?” she gushed, leaning down a little so her breasts became somewhat of a focal point.  
“Sure, do you have some paper?”  
She shook her head before she pulled down the shoulder of her tee and exposed the top half of her breast and just enough of her lacy white bra to make her overture obvious. “You can sign here,” she purred as she handed him a marker.

  
Oliver looked rigid and uncomfortable in his seat and Felicity wondered how obvious he would have to make it before the adoring fan got the idea. But dutifully Oliver pulled the cap off the marker and scrawled his autograph across her chest but up towards her shoulder rather than the fleshy part of her breast she pointed to.  
“There you go,” he said with a forced smile she didn’t seem to notice.  
She left her number on a napkin and blew him a kiss as she walked away.

“Sorry about that,” Oliver cringed as he used the napkin to wipe around his glass, wetting the ink and making it unreadable. “It happens sometimes."  
Felicity finished her drink and with the clinking of the melting ice she set it back down on the table. “You have no reason to apologise to me,” she stood up and pulled a few dollars from her wallet and left them on the table. “We’re nothing to each other.”

She walked straight for the door and out into the blustery air. She only made it a few steps before Oliver caught up.  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Oliver asked loudly over the buzz of the streetlamp above them.  
“It’s not supposed to _mean_ anything Oliver,” she replied coolly. “It's just the truth.”

They didn’t talk any more that night and while the bed felt like an ice bath, Felicity managed to drift off to sleep with the happy prospect that it was only one night.

Oliver hunched himself into the armchair with a pillow against the wall and a blanket wrapped around him. Sleep evaded him; but at least it was only one night.


	5. But not all feelings

 

**Sunday, December 23, 2018**

When Felicity woke up the room was quiet and Oliver was folded like a piano organ into a chair that was far too small with his neck on an angle that made her wince just looking at it. His blanket had dropped to his lap and his shoulders looked awkwardly disjointed as they hunched forward.

She actually felt bad for him and, as she tiptoed around the bed to collect her bag at the foot of it, she gently lifted the blanket and carefully tucked it in around his shoulder, before she crept towards the window and peeked out between the plastic blinds.

It looked like _at least_ 3 feet of snow had fallen during the night and was continuing to fall in a sort of airy dusting as she watched; something which, if she was tucked up inside with winter socks and comfortable pyjamas by a fire with a book and a cup of cocoa, Felicity would have thought absolutely magical – this morning however, it was not.

She knew the likelihood that, as the snow continued to fall, there would be anything taking off out of Haven Brook Falls – or anywhere in the near vicinity – was almost impossible.

But regardless, she showered, washed her hair, put on makeup and dressed herself in her last remaining outfit because she was going to take a punt at it anyway.

She was finishing her lipstick when there was a thud on the bathroom door.  
“Are you going to be in there all morning?” Oliver asked grumpily with his forehead pressed to the fake wooden panelling. He hadn’t felt this shitty since he went out on an all-night bender with Tommy when he was first drafted; but this morning had no exciting story to tag along with it, just a crick in his neck and an ache down the left side of his body from trying to claw any amount of sleep in the smallest armchair known to man.

Felicity pouted her lips before she patted them gently together and blotted and when she opened the door, Oliver stumbled a few steps before he corrected himself.

The bathroom smelled like coconut and strawberries and in his sleep-deprived state Oliver really didn’t know what to think of it. And then he saw her. Her freshly washed and dried hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail that sat almost exactly at her crown. Her makeup was flawless; lightly taupe eyes, eyelashes that defied gravity, slightly rouged cheeks and a red pout that was almost impossible not to stare at; and that was just her face.

Gone were the hand-painted overalls, replaced instead with a deep-plum dress that fit snuggly over her body. It had long-sleeves, a boat-neckline and after it nipped her in at the waist with darting that drew the eye down, a small ruffle on each side accentuated the curve of her hips. It wasn’t short or in any way revealing, but she looked worlds apart from the 17 year old girl her knew and the woman he’d met again last night.

“Bathroom’s yours,” she stated coolly as Oliver straightened himself up.  
“Hope you didn’t use all the hot water,” he bantered .  
She smiled smugly before she closed the door and went in search of anything that resembled coffee.

As she was stirring the instant granules she heard the shower start. A smile broke across her face as she imagined his massive frame trying to fit under the shower head that even Felicity had trouble with.

She dropped in a little of the milk the motel had provided and leaned against the counter while she laughed at the thought of it and what she wouldn’t give to see him in the shower right now.

Her smile quickly vanished when she realised what she’d just thought. She didn’t want to see Oliver in the shower. She couldn’t care less how his throbbing muscles probably glistened with water trails or how the soap might look lathering his body in tiny white peaks.  
Or how he might splash water against his chiselled jaw and smooth his palms through the bristles. Or how his cock might hang, flaccid but impressive, from his body, twitching as the sensations of warm water gave him fleeting moments of pleasure.

She swallowed, hard, as the visions fit for the pages of Cosmo drifted around her subconscious, and conscious, brain.

She gulped down her coffee and scolded herself for the lapse in good judgment; like the good judgment she’d showed yesterday when she got on a tiny plane filled with strangers to fly across the country. Felicity hung her head in shame; she could never write an autobiography because there was _no way_ any of this whole fiasco was going in it.

**》》《《**

As she rinsed the cup out the shower stopped, and she was still in the kitchen when she heard the bathroom door open. She set her shoulders back and prepared for round (probably) seven of bickering with her ex-best friend/prom date/first boy she ever loved, but Oliver, with a towel tightly wound around his waist walked out into the room without even looking behind to where she was standing, with her back pressed into the counter now silently hyperventilating.

Because _wow_.

She knew Oliver was cut. Anyone with common sense and working eyes could have picked that simply from the way clothes hung off him. Summers at his parents’ beach house had made her very well aware of the fact that even at a young age Oliver had the build to carry muscles that most ordinary men did not.

Take his back for instance, which ironically was exactly what Felicity was staring at, slack jawed and wide-eyed.

Most men’s backs are smooth with a slight raise where the shoulder blades lift the skin and maybe the edges of shoulder muscles as they formed over the cusps of the shoulders; but Oliver had taut, sculptured, carved, firm shapes on his back that formed rolling hills of muscles until they nipped in towards a narrow waist, all of which gave the illusion of a triangle, _or a corn chip._

A corn chip that had simply gotten bulkier and firmer as it aged and; it would seem, inkier too, because Oliver now had three tattoos at the top of his spine. They weren’t large, each the size of a half dollar, but the ink was a rich ebony that stood out from his lightly tanned skin.

From where she was standing Felicity couldn’t tell what they were, but they all looked a similar size and shape and they seemed to be somewhat geometrical.

**》》《《**

Oliver was humming almost silently to himself as he shook a hand through his wet hair and tipped his neck from side to side, cracking the stiffness from it. He had looked out into the room from the bathroom doorway and when he’d seen no sight of Felicity he’d assumed she’d left – which was probably for the better.

He hadn’t exactly been honest when he’d said he hadn’t thought about her in years; it was probably more like months, and even that might be a stretch; because the truth was he’d never really _stopped_ thinking about her.

He sighed as he caught his mind dropping back into the history of it all, history he shouldn’t replay. He bent over the bed and started rummaging through his bag.

**》》《《**

_Holy shit, his thighs._ Felicity blinked rapidly as the sight presented itself.  
Those, like the fingers, were ‘new’. Oliver had obviously always had literal thighs, and they had always had the shape of a runner – long and lean, but the shape and size of them had evolved over the years and she was now looking ( _read staring_ ) at sculptured legs that had threads of muscles wrap around them, the type that thrust _exceptionally_ well.

And then his hands moved slowly up towards his waist and fidgeted near the knot in his towel and for a few moments Felicity stayed perfectly silent until she realised what was about to happen…

“DON’T! I’m here,” she shrieked and Oliver spun around, startled, as he clutched the towel to his waist.  
“You could have said something sooner,” he retorted as he fastened the towel securly and held a tee against his naked chest. “Or were you too busy enjoying the show?”  
She scoffed loudly and obtusely before she lifted her mug pedantically from the sink. “I was drinking my coffee with my back to you,” she fibbed, “I turned around and you’re about to get naked. And, as for the show, don’t flatter yourself, I haven’t thought about you like that in, well _ever_.” Another lie.

She popped the mug back into the sink and walked around him, drifting her eyes anywhere but on the dripping half-naked man in the room. Wordlessly she polished a scuff mark off her shoe with her sleeve and slipped the pumps on.

“You really think we’re getting out of here today?” Oliver asked, a flicker of amusement in his tone, given she wouldn’t look directly at him.  
Felicity handed him his jacket and put her bag over her shoulder. “Maybe I’ll have some good luck, I must be due some,” she remarked, her eyes only blinking up for a split second; but apparently long enough to see a single drop of water as it rolled slowly down his washboard stomach. _Shit_.

Oliver took the jacket with a slight smile and a small nod of acknowledgement as their hands brushed against each other in the process.

“Thank you for the coat,” Felicity gently intoned.  
“You’re welcome,” Oliver responded.  
She turned to walk away, but only made it half a step before she looked back at him and smiled faintly. “And the bed, thank you for the bed.”  
Oliver answered the same way, with near the same, soft tone. “You’re welcome.”  
She looked down at her feet and silently encouraged them to move, and when they finally did she walked to the door and opened it.  
“Bye Felicity,” he spoke gently as he wrung the coat in his hands.  
She offered him a small wave, not unlike the very first one she’d ever given him before she stepped out of the motel room and closed the door behind her, lamenting the sombre _click_.

**》》《《**

It was freezing outside and, as Felicity navigated down the grated stairs, she struggled to stop her teeth from chattering.

The walk back to the airport seemed much shorter than it had the night before and Felicity was thankful for whatever good townsfolk it was that had shovelled the path there; she decided it was probably Ned. However, when she reached the small building she finally got the _Hive_ reference.

It was crammed full of people – the ones that must have shared a plane with Oliver, and there were three buses waiting in the carpark. The hand written note, in thick block letters and taped in the window was all Felicity needed to see.

**_No flights today._ **

The smaller note underneath said that there was a free bus service to a nearby City, 3 hours away, but that there would be no flights leaving from there either.

There were people funnelling onto the buses, suitcases in hand, but Felicity firstly, didn’t actually _have_ a plane ticket; and secondly had no need to travel even further away from her intended destination.

That was it, she was going to be disowned _and_ fired.

She brushed snow off a slatted wooden bench and sunk down onto it. She had worked too hard for this just to watch it flitter away but right now with exactly zero cell service and no way out of this place, she was left to wallow in her self-pity.

**》》《《**

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting there, staring blankly at a small dandelion trying to grow up out of the snow by her feet when there was a small tap on her shoulder and the wafting aroma of fresh, _proper_ , coffee tickled her senses.

When she looked up she found Oliver standing beside her dressed in a brown sweater, the same pea coat from last night, a thick woollen scarf and black chinos, offering her the slightly cinnamon-scented drink.

“Don’t worry, it’s not poisoned,” he joked as she took it slowly from his hands. The warmth of the coffee cup felt amazing in her naked palms and Felicity sighed instinctively at the blissful sensation.

“Where is this from?” she shivered out the words, her body unable to stop as she looked around in search of a coffee place.  
“I took a walk after you left, there’s a cute little town not too far from here,” he remarked as he shuffled off his coat and placed it around her shoulders. Not content that was enough, Oliver also unravelled his scarf and wrapped it loosely around her neck.  
“As nice as that dress is, you might want to consider something a little more weather appropriate.” He baited her with a wink before he sat down next to her.

“You taking the bus out of here?” he wondered as he stretched his arms out across the back of the park bench, and incidentally behind her.  
“No ticket,” she answered quietly as she blew steam from the small spout on the lid of her drink.  
“You can take mine if you need to get out of here,” he offered while his eyes stayed straight ahead.  
“Thanks,” she said, a genuine smile lifting her lips, “but it’s really not going to help.”

They let silence envelope them as they watched some of the other passengers mull around ahead of them.

“I saw a very fashionable ladies’ store in town if you’re up for the walk,” he continued as he playfully knocked her shoulder with the back of his hand. She looked down at her shoes and grimaced just as Oliver saw a tractor towing a trailer through the snow. “Scratch that,” he grinned before he leapt off the bench and jogged towards the slow-moving vehicle.

Felicity couldn’t hear what they were saying but after less than 5 minutes Oliver shook the other man’s hand before he jogged back to her.

“Your carriage awaits,” he winked as he offered her his hand. “I think you’ll like the little town, if I knew you at all.”

She stood up without his hand and Oliver nodded as he folded the same into his pocket. But when she stumbled on the walk over, he caught her at the waist and lifted her over a snow pile just as fresh sprinkling started.

Felicity thanked him graciously as he helped her step up onto the trailer, guiding her at the waist even as her form-fitting dress rose above mid-thigh and Felicity took a seat on a hay bale to one side, while Oliver sat on one opposite.

**》》《《**

Felicity didn’t want to admit it, but Oliver was right. _She loved it._

The quaint little town they rolled into after about 10 minutes seemed to be ripped from the pages of an old English novel in the throes of a magical winter. String lights hung from oak trees that had seen decades of life and wrought iron street lamps were decorated with handmade wreaths, all a little different. The few shops that lined Main Street all had fronts that were decorated with magical looking scenes; the elves and Santa hard at work, reindeers dashing through a starry night, and a family of teddy bears sitting around a table enjoying a feast of plastic food.

The smell of ivy and mistletoe seemed to permeate the air and as they drew closer to the centre of the village the aroma of pine intermingled too. Because right in the centre of sprawling park at the end of the road was a giant Christmas tree erected next to a large circular pergola in white-washed wood and decorated in what had to be nearly a thousand twinkle lights. Felicity could only imagine how stunning that would look in the thick of night.

The tractor stopped and Oliver got down first before he helped Felicity down.  
“Most everyone is at church till 11, but Deedee makes a great peach cobbler that you folks should try,” the middle-aged gentlemen who’d given them a lift advised with a tip of his hat and a nod across the street to a corner shop with a coffee-cup sign hanging from the awning outside.  
“We appreciate it,” Oliver remarked as he bid the man a farewell.

“What did you offer him?” Felicity asked while they walked slowly across the park towards Deedee's.  
“His kid is a baseball fan,” Oliver shrugged, “I offered him a few photos and an autograph if he brought him around later.”  
Felicity pulled her phone from the pocket of Oliver’s coat and stared down at it just as two bars filled up near the pergola.

She shrieked happily as she scouted a small circle around her in the hopes she could get to three bars.  
“You hungry?” Oliver asked, turning his head to watch her scamper around.  
“Go on ahead,” she waved him on without looking. “I really need to make a few calls.”

Oliver went on alone while Felicity tapped up the stairs of the raised staged pergola and found that ever-elusive third bar well above her head height. Her phone lit up with 25 missed calls, 20 of which were her mother.

She clambered carefully onto the wooden bench that ran around the inside edge of the structure and dialled. The line was crackly but she had no trouble hearing her mother loud and clear when she answered.  
“Oh my sweet lord, Felicity where _are_ you?” Donna shrieked, so loudly Felicity needed to move the phone away from her ear.  
“I’m fine, I’m safe, in a little town called Haven Brook Falls in Nebraska,” Felicity assured her; she would leave the story of how she got there for another time – _if ever_. “Everything is snowed under and there are no flights leaving today, I don’t know when there will be.”  
“I know.” She heard her mother weeping as she spoke and she suddenly felt absolutely awful about the odd message Donna would have received from her the day before. “It’s all ground to a halt here too. I just got your message and then I didn’t hear from you.”  
“Mom, I’m sorry, I’ve only just found somewhere with cell service,” Felicity explained as a few passer-bys looked at her oddly. “I don’t know when I’ll get out of here, I don’t think I can make it home by tomorrow night,” she said, sadness threading through her words.  
She should have made it her priority, Felicity knew that now, but hindsight was a bitch when you couldn’t do anything about it.  
“You’re safe?” Donna enquired.  
Felicity glanced across the park to where Oliver was leaning up against a mail box, just waiting. “Yeah, I’m fine.”  
“Then that’s all that really matters.”  
“Love you mom,” Felicity blurted out.  
“Love you too baby girl.”

After they hung up Felicity felt a sudden slump in her mood because she had another call to make and that _definitely_ wasn’t going to end the same way.

Her next call was to her boss.  
An asshole of a man a few years her senior who had flunked out of every college he’d ever been to, used his office as his own personal brothel and was given the job solely on the fact his last name was on the building.

As expected her boss, Harvey Spick, was not pleased; in fact it seemed to Felicity that he personally held her responsible for the blizzard that was blanketing the country – _it had interrupted his holiday plans._

Felicity found herself gritting her teeth as she apologised while she reminded herself that this job was a stepping point, another rung on the ladder; and soon she would step on his face and move on. _Soon_.

“The meeting was moved anyway, to the 27th, 9am,” he finally spoke, 7 minutes into the conversation, with a cavalier laugh.  
She could have strangled him; happily.  
“That’s great news Harvey, I’m sure I can make…”  
“You will make it or you’ll be fired,” he interrupted bluntly.  
“The weather is _hardly_ something I’m in control of Harvey,” Felicity argued as she felt her temple starting to thump.  
“Not my problem Smoak.” She could hear him chewing down the line and if it wasn’t for the fact she really needed this job she could have cussed him out like a sailor.  
But instead, Felicity took a long, steady breath and answered as politely as she could through a tense jaw. “I’ll make it.”

“Good,” she listened to the sound of his smacking lips. “Also, you need to make some adjustments.”  
She massaged her thumb into her head. “Adjustments?”  
“What you’re pitching isn’t exciting enough, go with that thing I suggested.” He laughed and she knew exactly what he was talking about.

“I don’t think…”  
“I don’t pay you to think, I pay you to _do_. So _do_.”  
He hung up before she could object any further.

“You mother fucking son of a bitch,” Felicity cursed loudly at the disconnected tone.  
“Wow, that’s new,” Oliver marvelled.  
During her migraine-inducing conversation he had wandered back over and caught the last few moments of the call.

She climbed down from the seat and slammed her phone into the pocket before she checked her watch. It was 11am, _finally_.

“Everything alright?” Oliver asked when Felicity’s temple was turning white around the spot she was digging her finger into.  
“It’s fine. Just work,” she answered tersely before she offered him an apologetic smile. “I mean we can’t all get paid to pose in our underwear,” she added with a smirk as she watched the row of shop owners put out their _Open_ signs.

Oliver’s cheeks blushed a fire-engine red as his shoulders closed in around him. “You know about those?”  
She tapped his arm and laughed. “You had a billboard in Times Square, I couldn’t exactly miss it.”

She started to walk towards the shops as Oliver walked a step behind. “That was my agent’s idea you know, not mine.”  
Felicity turned to look at him over her slender shoulder, a smirk flirting with her lip. “Sure it was.”  
“It was,” Oliver pouted.

The shop they walked into first was a ladies’ apparel store that looked like four different boutiques crammed into one. The shop window was displaying tacky Christmas jerseys and terrible plaid pants while the left hand side of the shop would be deemed “matronly” and the right side of the shop would be deemed “dance club glamour”, however when Felicity peered down towards the changing rooms, she saw what looked like a single rack of jeans and, hopefully, normal clothes.

“Oh, sweets, you can go right through there,” a woman in her 60s with perfectly quaffed, grey hair and neatly painted red nails said as she pointed towards a doorway that went from that shop and into the one next door. The shop that was flooded in a sea of white dresses. “Maggie in the bridal part will look after you two cuties.”

Felicity took one obscenely large step away from Oliver and shook her head. “No, us, no, we’re not,” she stammered as she felt a sudden burst of heat under her cheeks.  
“Definitely not us, nope,” Oliver added.  
Felicity looked up at him, bemused. “You don’t have to sound quite so horrified with the idea,” she remarked teasingly.  
“I’m just repeating what you said,” Oliver huffed before he followed Felicity back towards the sparse everyday wear.

She found two pairs of jeans that fit surprisingly well given their price tag of $16.99 and three tops that honestly weren’t all that bad and finally, as she shrugged off Oliver’s coat, she found a red and black checkered coat that might not have been like her normal attire, but was like wrapping a warm blanket around her body and she was buying it.

“Do you have any, uh, under garments?” Felicity asked quietly as she kept a sly eye on Oliver, who was pretending not to listen.  
“Oh, we do, but they’re next door,” the friendly woman announced as she took Felicity’s arm and walked her towards the bridal store. “We have some great little pieces that will really make him…” she paused to wink.  
“Oh we’re not,” Felicity started but it fell on deaf ears when another women, who appeared to be a twin of the first and who Felicity assumed was Maggie, appeared with a jubilant smile.

“Well who’s this Margo, she’s adorable,” Maggie declared as her twin, Margo, led Felicity towards the impressively large stock of lingerie.  
“She’s looking for some sexy lingerie,” Margo cheered as she patted Felicity’s hand.  
“I wouldn’t say sexy,” Felicity interjected.  
“What’s he hanging in the doorway for, come, come,” Margo bubbled while she went to fetch Oliver.

His look was priceless as he sunk his enormous frame into the wall. “Oh I don’t need to see what she…” he flubbed as he glanced over to Felicity surrounded by lace panties.

“Oh this set is perfect,” Maggie smiled as she handed Felicity a nice red pair.  
Felicity nodded as she turned it in her hand, which was when she noticed they were crouch-less. “Oh, no, I think,” Felicity stumbled for the words as she buried it back between the other pieces. “I’m just looking for some everyday normal underwear, no lace and a little more, uh, fabric,” she finally managed as Oliver stood, looking about as out of place in a shop as any man ever had. “And we aren’t together,” she finished with a decisive nod towards her shopping companion.  
“Oh.”  
Maggie looked at Margo who looked at Oliver before she glanced back at Felicity and repeated her sister’s response.  
“Oh.”  
Margo walked with Felicity to a smaller rack which had a selection of simple panties, unfortunately the only thing in her size were three different colours of leopard print, but, she supposed, it would do.

“Sorry about the misunderstanding,” Maggie said quietly to Oliver as she flittered around nearby. “My sister and I are usually very good at picking the ones that will last.”  
Oliver smiled faintly as he watched Felicity near the counter paying.  
“Maybe if you ask her, she might say yes,” came a soft encouragement from behind him, but when Oliver turned around Maggie had moved across the store and was busy fixing a wedding dress on one of the mannequins.

**》》《《**

  
Back at the motel and the flurry of snow had well and truly set in for the afternoon at least. Felicity was staring at her folder of specs and talking points and the rather motivating speech (if she did say so herself) that was now almost completely useless. She dropped her head to the small table with slightly uneven legs and sighed loudly.

She lifted her head from the table and huffed at a piece of paper that had stuck to her skin before she pushed back her chair and stood up.

“ _Sure_ rewriting an entire pitch is nothing Harvey you giant sack of idiot,” she muttered to herself as she ran two frustrated hands roughly through the ends her hair.

A gentle chorus of laughter drew Felicity to the window. She lifted the blinds and looked down at Oliver who was outside playing ball with a couple of kids that had shown up about an hour before for an autograph and a picture. He'd been outside with them ever since.

She couldn't help but smile as the number had clearly grown from the original two 10 year olds to a small swarm of about 8. He was teaching one to pitch straight and steady before he ran to the batter to lift their hands where they should be; not unlike he had as a 10 year old boy teaching her how to slug a ball despite her complete lack of coordination.

For a moment Felicity couldn't reconcile that the man she was looking at was the same one who had broken her heart over a decade ago.

 _She’s a charity case._  
_He couldn’t get out of there fast enough._  
_He said her mom…_  
Felicity might have heard those words 12 years ago but they were so vivid in her ears even now. They weren't exactly something a person could forget; they had scarred her soul and she wore them like a tattoo under her skin.

Oliver glanced up and for a moment the two of them locked eyes. There was so much he wanted to know, so many questions that he had tried to leave in the past.

After she'd left Starling, Oliver had tried to find every reason to hate her, in the vague hope it would make her final words to him a little easier to take.

Because maybe hating her would be easier than loving her.  
_It wasn't._

And even as time slowly diminished his feelings, dulling them to an ache he only sometimes thought about, he was still left with an unfillable void of a friendship he sorely missed, and regret that he hadn’t banged on her door that night in search of answers.

They severed the languid eye contact at the same time with so many things left unsaid.

**》》《《**

It was early evening when Oliver came back to the room and dusted himself off at the doorway. The room was pleasantly warm with a radiator heater that now worked, and he proceeded to shuck off his top coat and hang it on the back of the door.

It might have only been early evening but the snow was starting to come down heavier now and it had blocked out the final rays of daylight as dark, slightly ominous, clouds encroached.

“Come on, you need to eat,” Oliver encouraged as he glanced down at his watch and his own gurgling stomach.  
“I have work to do,” Felicity countered as she kept her eyes down and her fingers taping across her tablet.  
“And you’ll be better at doing it once you eat.”

Felicity plucked the pen from above her ear and scribbled through an entire sheet of paper. “I need to work,” she repeated dryly.

She wasn't mad at him exactly, but her frustration at herself and the work ahead of her was clearly apparent in every word she spoke.

And then the power went out and the whole room was cast into thick, cold shadows. Oliver glanced across the road to the neon Jonny’s sign.

He threw the beanie at her and Felicity caught it. “Come on, they have a generator across the road.” She sobbed out a sigh as she looked at the mountain of paper in front of her. “Take your folder of important documents, we'll get you beer and pizza and you might have an epiphany,” he added impishly.  
“No beer,” Felicity retorted as she stood up and gathered her things. “I need to focus.”  
She trotted over to the door but stopped before going out. “However, pizza does sound kind of amazing.”

**》》《《**

Once across the road, Felicity found herself a seat at the bar near the wall while Oliver set up a pool table for himself nearby.  
“Can I get you something to drink?” the bartender, a different one from the night before, asked.  
Felicity glanced up and pointed towards a pink fruity drink alongside the sodas in the fridge behind him. “Please,” she smiled as Oliver walked over.  
“Pizza will be ready shortly,” Oliver whispered near Felicity's ear. “Sure you don't want a game of pool while you wait?”  
“And embarrass you in front of all these people?” she teased coyly. “That would just be cruel.”  
“Suit yourself,” he winked, while he chalked the pool cue.  
Felicity managed to catch his wrist as he walked away. “But this was a good idea, thank you,” she offered, tipping her head in a soft bow.

The bartender walked over with Felicity’s opened bottle. “Could I please get that in a glass,” she asked before he reached her. He nodded and decanted the same into a soda glass.

Felicity didn't realise how thirsty she was until the sweet, bubbly drink touched her lips. It was raspberry flavoured, with a hint of cranberry but sweetened to remove much of the tartness and Felicity downed half a glass almost immediately.

In fact, by the time Oliver carried the pizza box over to the bar and set it beside her some 30 minutes later, Felicity was onto her third drink.

**》》《《**

Another long game of pool and two rounds of darts later Felicity approached Oliver from behind, pinching him at the waist and making him miss the next break.

“God you have like no fat there,” she hummed as she went in for a second pinch.  
Oliver caught her hands and laughed. “Whatcha doing there Felicity?”  
“You never used to ask me that,” she sighed as she slid her hands from his grip.

His smiled wistfully, she was right, there was a time he would have relished that contact and, if he was truthful, it wasn't that he didn't now; it was that he shouldn't.

“You finished?” he asked while he nodded towards the pile of work she had spread across the bar.  
“I don't want to work anymore,” she said, popping her lips at the end. “I want to challenge you to a game of strip pool.”  
His laugh was electric. “Strip pool?”  
She bobbed her head until the room started spinning.  
“Felicity, are you drunk?”  
“No,” she boisterously objected, “I've only had soda for your information.”  
He picked up her half finished glass from the bar and took a drink. “Yeah that's alcohol,” he decided, unequivocally.  
“No,” she pouted cutely and he couldn't help but smile.  
But her pout would change the facts. “That's 12% alcohol, how many did you have?”  
She shrugged as she counted on her fingertips until the barman answered for her. “Seven and a half.”

Her eyebrows crinkled towards her nose as she leaned back against the pool table.  
“Oliver,” she whispered, beckoning him closer with her hand. He stepped close and leaned his ear down towards her mouth. “I think I'm drunk,” admitted Felicity.  
“Alright, let's get you home,” Oliver chuckled before he sured up the tab and collected her papers.  
“Don't forget the pizza,” she quipped and Oliver dutifully grabbed the box before they left.

“Can you walk okay?” he asked as she tiptoed through the snow.  
“I'm not that dr-,” before she could finish Felicity fell over in the snow.

He waited for her to get back up but instead she sat back onto the snow and sighed into the frosty air.  
“I can’t go on,” she sobbed, “just leave me here with my pizza.”  
“Was I this dramatic drunk?” Oliver posed with a smirk before he knelt down in front of her and tapped his shoulders “Come on, I'll give you a piggyback ride.”  
“I'm too big for that,” she huffed as a chimney of fog blew up from her mouth.  
“I'm pretty sure I can carry you,” assured Oliver.

Which he could, _easily_ , and by the time they made it into the motel room she was yawning into his back. The power was back on but the room felt barely warmer than it was outside.

He set Felicity down and put her papers – and half-eaten pizza – on the table. She fell back onto the bed with her feet still flat on the floor and sighed at the ceiling.

A few moments slipped by before she sat back up and looked across the room at him. “If I dared you to kiss me, would you?” she asked with her head titled to one side and her blue eyes wide with expectation.  
“No,” Oliver answered softly while his hand twitched at the back of his neck.  
“Why? I’m not pretty enough?”  
“Because you’re drunk,” he disputed before adding, “I’d never do that.”  
“You kissed me once,” she mentioned as she absently flopped back onto the bed.  
Oliver combed his fingers through his hair, shaking out a few remnants of snow. “I did,” he admitted.  
“I kissed you back you know,” she confessed while she traced the line of her lips a delicate fingertip. “But I still wasn’t enough for you.”  
“That’s not it Felicity,” he breathed shakily.  
She stood up and headed for the pizza before she shrugged. “I wasn’t enough in my bedroom either.”

The words stung him to hear and in that moment he wanted her to profess the truth, but it was too much. “You know that’s not true,” he breathed, his eyes begging for her belief.  
“It is true, but it’s fine,” she remarked matter-of-factly before ate the rest of the pizza slice and tossed the crust back into the box.  
“I see you still do that, remarked Oliver with a smile, steering the conversation away for feelings he had tried not to face for sometime.  
“I get it, you think you know me, good old predictable Felicity,” she groaned while she shook a hand through her ponytail.  
“Do you want to pop the button on your jeans?” he quizzed, his lips turning up into a lopsided smile.  
“No...,” she drawled, even though she did.  
“Sure?”  
“I’m not the same girl anymore you know,” she bickered before her lips furrowed into a frustrated pout.  
“Oh I can see that,” he chuckled, “you swear much more frequently now.”  
She raised her eyebrows, lifted her middle finger and smiled, “Fuck you,” before she demolished another slice of pizza and discarded the crust once again.

“You’ll looking a little uncomfortable,” smirked Oliver.  
“I’m fine,” she answered, despite the fact her jeans felt like a denim prison.  
“Okay because I have this shirt that just doesn’t fit me anymore,” he teased as he lifted a Red Sox jersey from his bag and dangled it in front of her. “And this new pair of gym shorts with an elastic waist that I got as part of a sponsorship deal, but they're not my size. Too small.” He flexed the waistband and Felicity chewed on her lower lip.

She stole them with a speed he was surprised she could muster and absconded into the bathroom. _Just like old times._

She came out of the bathroom with her hair loose around her shoulders. It wasn’t as curly as she used to wear it and it was now a honeycomb tone, but she had washed off her make up and one of the shirt tails was tucked into the waist of the shorts that fit deliciously around her shapely ass. The top three buttons of the shirt were undone and one side was draped precariously on the edge of her shoulder, most noticeably Felicity wasn't wearing a bra.

He tried not to look, and in some respects he should have known she wouldn't resemble the teenager he once knew; but he hadn't expected her to look quite so... womanly.

Wordlessly Felicity climbed into bed while Oliver moved the chair against the table in the hopes of finding a more comfortable position than the night before. Still without saying anything, Felicity folded back the covers on the other side of the bed and tapped the mattress softly, twice, before she switched off the lamp beside her.

“Night Oliver,” she spoke softly into the dimly lit room.  
He climbed into bed beside her and switched off his lamp, throwing the room into darkness. “Night Felicity.”

He lay awake in the darkness for a little while, just listening to the sound of her breathing until she inched closer, instinctively searching out his heat.

“You were always enough,” he whispered into the still of the night. His words lost to the shadows.

_You were always enough._

**》》《《**

**Author note: That's it for me this year (probably).  I had wanted to finish this story before I headed into the almost-literal wilderness for a complete unplug, but I had also grossly underestimated my muse and here we are, long past a one shot...**

**Anyway, have a tease for next chapter:**

"This is crazy,"

"All the best ideas are."

**Be safe, be happy and remember life should be lived in moments.**

**Much love xox**

**Felice.**


	6. Turn around (bright eyes)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To letting go.

****

**24 December**

Felicity groaned as she lolled around in the motel bed trying to fight the encroaching light of daytime as it splintered through the blinds. It wasn’t sunny by any stretch, but the fingers of light intruding her throbbing eye sockets was enough.

Her head felt like a highway ran through the middle of it and her mouth was as dry as the Sahara. But an even more pressing matter was the utter icky-ness she felt, the type that could only be fixed with a long, hot shower. She needed a shower.

Felicity rolled out of bed like a weight was hung at each ankle and she groaned rather pitifully as the room blinked into view, though her brain was too foggy to register much more than the fact it wasn’t _her_ bedroom.

She stripped off the shirt she was wearing, popping the buttons open with a satisfying yank on either side. The chilly air whipped up her nipples and a rush of goosebumps cascaded down her chest as she smacked her lips together in a drawn yawn.

The loose-tying shorts were next and she kicked them off at the ankle before she’d reached the bathroom door, leaving her standing in nothing more than a pair fluorescent pink leopard print panties; which she vaguely remembered buying.

She hooked her thumbs into the waist band and started to shimmy them down just as the bathroom door opened and a cloud of warm steam billowed out. The sudden burst of warm, moist air startled Felicity awake enough that she screamed.

Oliver emerged from the steam to the sight of her; her perky, alabaster breasts with rosy-hued nipples, her smooth stomach, a little rounded but taut, her milky thighs and those tiny scraps of fabrics that were supposed to be panties.

His eyes screamed to blink but he couldn’t bear to miss a second of the sight.

But then he saw her eyes, wide and frozen in horror and there was only one thing he could think to do; he tore the towel from around his waist and threw it towards Felicity, who caught it and held it, draping against her chest.

Only now he was naked too.

Felicity blinked, shell-shocked, staring at his flaccid cock, thick and threaded with veins, a pulsing head misted with beads of water. Taut chest muscles rolling one after the other, wet and glistening. But no matter how hard she tried to look elsewhere, her eyes returned to his cock, a fine sculpture of manhood.

And then she mewled.  
Like a soft kitten and very nearly like a purr, until Oliver realised his own predicament and ran back into the bathroom. He fell back against the door, feeling the heave of his chest as her thought about her.

And Felicity fell back onto the edge of the bed; thinking about him.

**》》《《**

The town was ‘bustling’ as much as a small town that was already remote and was now cut off from the rest of the world could be – Ned’s snow plough couldn’t keep up and the one road in, and out, of Haven Brook Falls was buried under 5 inches of snow.

Felicity was now infinitely more comfortable in a pair of jeans, sneakers and a soft pink sweater. Oliver had wordlessly offered her his coat but she had declined with a thankful smile; the weather, while a little inclement, was surprisingly mild.

The walk to town had been taken in almost silence because, despite the few hours that had lapsed since the bathroom kerfuffle it still loomed over them both like the polka dot elephant in the room.

It was the mid-afternoon and the ambient sounds of a children's choir singing carols that only had a small window of being acceptable, danced pleasantly through the air. Very few of the passengers from Oliver's plane had opted to stay in Haven Brook but the folk that lived there had shown up in force and the little square of garden at the end of Main Street was a flurry of activity.

A man in a red suit sat in a snow covered grotto chanting Merry Christmas at passers by while two teenagers that we're probably not getting paid enough handed out candy.

The boy with the slightly sullen look, for an elf anyway, recognised Oliver and his smile grew instantly. He nodded and Oliver nodded back.

Maggie and Margo were sitting on a bench with another woman knitting. They stilled when Felicity and Oliver wandered past and Oliver caught Maggie lean over and whisper something to the third woman who smiled and nodded knowingly.

**》》《《**

One Christmas parade and host of festive games later, as the afternoon began to darken, the twinkle lights around the tree and strung through the pergola sprung into life.

It was Felicity who steered them towards the light show, mesmerized as she absently took his hand and jogged him towards the curtain of light. He watched her intently as her eyes lit up, so much of her had changed but that glint in her wide azure eyes when something made her smile; that hadn't changed.

He was enraptured in her watching as the last rays of the sun faded below the horizon when a finger tapped on his shoulder. Both of them turned to find the smiling face of Maggie, her twin not far behind.

Both older woman pointed upwards at the cut of mistletoe hanging above Felicity and Oliver's head.

Felicity laughed and her cheeks flushed a rosy hue.  
“It’s not like it would mean anything, isn’t that what you once said?” Oliver remarked as their fingers idly toyed with each other, just barely touching before they realised and pulled back.

He leaned forward and gently kissed her forehead, exquisitely gentle and his lips lingered there and her eyes softly closed. With every second that ticked by, Felicity could hear the thump of her heart beat echoing through her body.

 _I want better._  
He swallowed her words like acid down his throat before he pulled back, leaving a sigh misted on her skin.

  
**》》《《**

Early evening turned towards dinner and it wasn't long before Oliver and Felicity found themselves eating a steak dinner at the bar across the road, finally taking Trudy up on her recommendation.

Felicity had to admit she hadn't eaten a steak the size of a plate in a long time and, as she chewed away on the grilled hunk of meat, she would absolutely agree with Trudy; this was the best steak she'd ever had.

There was a jukebox playing a little louder that evening and a few of the tables had been shifted around the bar to make room for a box stage and a small dance floor; Mondays - according to the sign posted on the notice board outside - was karaoke evening.

Oliver wasn’t enjoying his meal as much. His heart was weighed down and his breathing felt lumbered and heavy. He'd spent a decade simply throwing stuff over the feelings he'd had for Felicity, burying them under a career and a few flings where no one expected him to stay longer than a few nights.

He was 30 and he'd never uttered those three elusive words.

And now she was sitting across from him, eating dinner and mindlessly tapping her foot on the floor beneath the table to the sounds of 90s pop music.

Thoughts were spiralling in his head until he opened his mouth and one of them barrelled out. “Remember the first time we saw each other?”  
She looked up from her plate and smiled as her head bobbed in what looked like a halo of blonde waves that she wore loose around her porcelain face.

“You were playing baseball on the street and you waved,” she answered softly as her fingers pinned back her hair to her temple.  
“You waved back,” Oliver remarked, his smile lifting higher at one end.  
“How could I not?” Felicity grinned before she picked up her drink and sucked down a taste. “You were standing on my driveway.”  
“We were friends once,” Oliver reminisced.  
A tiny smile fluttered across her lips. “We were.”

 _Were_.  
He pushed food around his plate. “What happened?”  
“Life,” she replied softly before silence fell between them once more.  
Neither of them found the moment to admit what was really playing with their minds.

He noticed her foot had stopped tapping.

**》》《《**

At almost exactly 7pm on the dot the karaoke night sprung into life, led by a hearty rendition of ‘My Heart will go on’ by an unlikely elderly man serenading his wife, an older woman with a braid of grey who sat captivated at the front table.

The next few songs were nothing short of typical and an hour into it, Felicity noticed the number of patrons had swelled.

Christmas carols were dispersed between punk rock and bookended by pop classics and no matter how good or how _less than_ good the singer was, they received a rousing round of applause.

For Felicity it provided a distraction and for Oliver it was much the same. But neither of them could ignore the turbulent thoughts in their own minds while they fought back feelings.

Oliver couldn't remember the last time he'd been drunk. It wasn't that he didn't drink, he'd have an occasional one with friends and a celebratory one every so often. He had the frame and muscle mass to be able to metabolise it reasonably quickly, but at his level, as a professional athlete, his body was his job and he was more than accountable for what went into it. So, when he turned to see the seven empty bottles on the table in a little over 2 hours, he was markedly surprised.

He was also feeling a certain drop in inhibitions and when the microphone was offered to him; Oliver accepted. Something inside him knew _exactly_ what song to sing.

Felicity watched, surprised, as Oliver stepped into the stage, dwarfing the microphone in his large grip before he leaned down to person running the machine and talked behind the background music.

When he stood up again he was looking across the room at her, so obviously that a few heads turned to follow his stare.

And then the song started.

 _Turn around,_ the backing track started before Oliver found his voice, “Every now and then I get a little bit lonely, and you're never coming round.”  
_Turn around_  
“Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of my tears.”  
Felicity wrung her hands together on her lap as her heart stuttered through each beat. Tears were caught just behind her eyes as every shaky note he sung echoed through her bones. She had loved him; or at least a few years of reflecting on the time they shared had made her aware that he held her heart. Seeing him now and recognising the boy he once was in those bright eyes and that Cheshire grin was twisting Felicity's heart into a vice, because _that_ boy had also been the one to break her heart.

 _Turn around_  
“Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by.”  
He knew people were looking at him, he knew those few years of compulsory choir at elementary school had done little to turn his voice into anything more than a shaky vibrato, but it didn’t matter.  
  
_Turn around_  
Felicity stood up and his heart lifted; she was going to join him. “Every now and then I get a little bit terrified...” but then he saw her eyes, sad, sullen, wet with tears. “And then I see the look in your eyes.”  
_Turn around bright eyes_  
Felicity turned and walked towards the door.  
The words scrolled across the scene as Oliver's voice faded, “but every now and then I fall apart.”  
Turn around bright eyes, every now and then I fall apart  
She left.

Oliver followed her out of the bar, the sky was dark and a thick blanket of snow had fallen fresh on the ground while a small dusting still lingered in the air. He jogged up to her, watching as she swiped tears from her frigid cheeks, before he touched her shoulder and turned her.  
“Please don't,” she begged, the trails of tears on her cheeks glistening in the street lamp above them.  
“All these years I’ve tried to understand you, tried to make sense of what happened between us and I can’t Felicity,” he lamented, anguish threading through his words and shadowing his eyes. “I can’t.”

She shook her head as her lips trembled, there were so many words unsaid.  
“I’ll see if the hotel has any other rooms available,” she spoke softly as she backed a step away. The words had gone unsaid for so long.

“Don’t walk away from this Felicity, not again, not without telling me why,” his words pleaded and his eyes begged. He couldn’t go another decade trying to understand.

“What do you want from me Oliver?” Felicity sobbed out, her svelte frame shaking underneath the weight of her words.  
“I want the truth,” he beseeched, nothing more to gain from silence. “I want to know why you left without so much as a ‘good luck and goodbye’.” His voice raised, 12 years coming to a head.  
“Can you blame me?” she replied bitterly as she trawled her shaking hand through her locks. “I had my heart broken by the only boy I ever trusted.”  
Her truth spilled out of her mouth, tainted by a father she didn’t know and a young heart that had started to trust again; only to be broken.

Oliver sucked in her words, feeling them and the anger they brought with them, down to his bones; but he didn’t understand them and he couldn’t place the reason for the bitterness in the way she spoke them.

She saw his confusion threaded across his crinkled brow, she wasn’t even worth the memory. “Never mind,” she chided before she turned to walk away.

He watched as she started to leave and he stayed anchored to the ground while she walked across the road towards the motel. It was like that night all over again as he stared up at her blackened window and decided it could wait; but he was not as naive today to believe there would be a tomorrow.

“No Felicity,” he called as he ran after her, “don't walk away from this. From me. Not again.” He reached her at the bottom of the metal staircase. “Tell me the truth.”  
She turned around and her hair whipped against her face in the chilly breeze.

“You kissed me and then nothing,” she whispered, her words shaky and her breathing thin, she couldn’t stop herself if she had tried; and maybe she no longer wanted to. “And then I kissed you and nothing.” He bowed his head to her words, knowing each one she spoke. “Do you know how confusing that was for me?”  
“It was confusing for me too,” he admitted, burying one hand in his jacket pocket while the other combed across his scalp.  
She took a lumbered breath to steady her words. “And then you asked me to go to prom and I changed my plans and I put on that stupid dress for you.” She couldn’t disguise the resentment in her voice, so she didn’t try to.  
_He wanted the truth._ The truth came with anger founded by hurt.  
  
“I remember,” he dipped his head, watching a small snow flurry at his feet. “It was red.”  
Fresh tears flooded down her cheeks as she remembered looking at herself in the mirror all those years ago, smoothing her hands down the tight bodice, wondering if tonight they might be more than just friends. “And then you broke my heart. You told people things I only ever trusted you with.”

She wanted to run away, to hide on the other side of a door in a blackened room like she had done years before, just letting the tears scold her face and scar her heart; but she couldn’t. Her feet wouldn’t let her move.

“What?” gaped Oliver. _He had held her heart long enough to break it?_  
“My mother, where she worked, they all knew Oliver,” she sobbed, the walls she had held up for so long crumbling around her snow-covered shoes. “I overheard some girls in the bathroom. I only ever told you.” She violently brushed back tears, but more sprung up in their place. “They knew about the kiss in my room, they said that I was just a charity case to you. I never asked you to take me Oliver, I never asked you to kiss me and change _everything_. I never asked to be the second prize.”

She watched his face drop and his eyes struggle to contain their confusion and work through everything she was saying. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out.

The final blow to her heart. “And then I saw you with McKenna in the garden, I never asked for that either,” she added, brittleness lacing her tone.  
“Felicity, I...” He stammered, shaking his head arduously. “I never said any of that.”  
She stepped back, feeling the sharpness of the edge of the step above her heel. His eyes looked hurt and confused, but she'd heard it with her own ears, seen it all with her own eyes. No one else had known about her mother or the kiss in her bedroom. She _couldn’t_ trust his eyes anymore. “They knew Oliver,” she sighed, “how else would they if not from your mouth?”  
Her chin dropped with the weight of her tears until Oliver gently lifted it with one finger.  
“Look at me,” he begged, his voice whispered and gravelly. “Do you believe I would _ever_ have said those things about you?”  
Her lips trembled before she chewed them at one side. Twelve years ago she would have known the answer, but twelve years ago she wanted to believe Oliver might just have feelings for her.  
“I don’t know,” she spoke, softly and sadly, “I thought I knew, but I don’t know.”  
“You _know_ me,” he urged, desperation flooding his eyes.  
“Do I? Did I ever?”  
She hugged herself tightly as the bite of a cold wind slapped her face, sticking to the wet trails of tears.  
“Felicity I was in love with you,” he admitted as he reached a hand out towards her before dropping it back.  
Felicity’s eyes widened as she choked back his words. “What?”  
A smile lifted his lips. “How did you not know I was in love with you?”

“You didn’t invite me because your mom told you to?” she asked, her mind a turbulent sea of questions.  
“Felicity, no,” he shook his head, his words neatly breathlessly falling from his mouth, “I asked you to prom because I wanted to go with you.”  
“To get your car, I was the final Good Samaritan task, that’s-,” she sucked in a breath, cold, sharp and icy, “that’s what they said.”  
He felt her fingers just out of reach of his, electricity building between them like the start of a storm.  
“I mowed Mrs Thatcher’s lawn,” he sighed, fingertips stretching to hers. “I wanted the car for summer because I was hoping that I could drive to Boston and spend some time with you before college, take you any where you wanted to go.”  
Their fingers met and sparks jumped between them, sending shivers down their spines.

“But, you and McKenna I saw you.” She took a step backwards, lifting herself up to the first step and severing their touch. Her eyes weren’t wrong, they couldn’t be. She stepped up another step and he followed.  
“She kissed me,” he admitted, his brow furrowing like it had done all those years before. “There was never a thing between us, it was always you.”  
“The room?” They took another step together, their fingers touching.  
His cheeks blushed as his head dropped and when he looked up, his eyes were smiling. “You know about that?”  
She nodded, their fingers entangled. “I saw you.”  
“That part is true, I did get a room, but it was for _us_.”

Her heart thudded into her chest. “But they knew everything,” she breathed, a chimney of fog swirling in the chilly air.  
“I don’t know how they knew, but I never told anyone, I,” his words stuck in his throat when he remembered something. “Tommy knew,” he breathed.  
“You told Tommy?”  
His eyes grew saddened as the wheels in his mind rolled through. “About the kiss in your room, yes, he knew how I felt about you,” he nodded slowly, “But I never told him about Donna, he already knew.”  
“I don’t understand.”  
“He’d seen her working, I told him to never tell a soul and I don’t believe he would have.” He cupped her face and slowly brushed his thumb through a stagnant tear on her cheek. “You know me Felicity, you know I wouldn’t, that I _couldn’t_ hurt you. But I understand now, why you left me that note.”  
His hand trembled against her cheek until she laid her hand on top. “What note?” she asked, breathless and tremored.

His hand slipped from her cheek and he plucked his wallet from his pocket. With a brittle breath he took the crumpled and folded note from inside it and handed it to her.

The edges had turned up and the folds were now ironed into the paper, the ink had faded but the words were still as clear as they were years before.

_**Thanks for the night Oliver, but I realise now that you have feelings for me that I don’t have for you.** _

_**When I kissed you I thought I might feel something, but I didn’t. That one kiss we shared was a huge mistake and I don’t want to be held back by some wannabe baseball star. I want to be with someone smart.** _

_**I’m sorry. I just want better and better is in Boston.** _

_**Goodbye.** _

She gasped, reading the vitriol in the words she’d never seen before, signed by a hand that wasn’t hers but with a name that was. It shook in her hand as snow fell into the folds.

“I never wrote this,” she insisted, her brows recoiling in pain. The words were so cruel and the pain in his eyes now even clearer. “Where did you get this?”  
“The doorman at the prom, he said you gave it to him.”  
She flattened the paper between her hands, sadness replaced with anger. “I never wrote this.” And then something in it’s words stuck. “How many times did we kiss Oliver?”

His shoulders slumped; all these years, all those times he’d read ‘her’ words, he’d never noticed. “Twice,” he answered, the word rasped in his throat.  
“Twice,” she echoed. “Not ‘one kiss’.”  
He took the note from her hand and crushed it into his fist. “You didn’t write this,” he fumed as his heart thumped against his chest.  
“No,” she whispered as she touched her fingers to his jaw, soothing the tension there. “And you didn’t tell them.”  
He turned his head and kissed the heel of her hand before he whispered “No,” against her skin.

She was a step above him, their eyes level and their lips the same. Each breath they took filled the space between them with warm air. She could smell the ropy scent of beer on his breath and she traced the darker flecks of blue in his eyes before, like cymbals clashing together, their lips met in a frantic kiss 12 years in the making.

At the moment their lips met it was wholly fast, written with crushing lips and thrashing tongues, but as seconds slipped away the frenetic pace stilled to a slow, warm graze with their tongues delicately exploring the realms of the other’s mouth. Hot, sticky breaths were shared between them that not even the frigid and sudden heavy fall of snow could dampen as her fingers folded around the back of his neck and her thumbs brushed up his whiskery jaw.

Oliver’s fingers trickled down her spine until his hands reached her hips and held her tight against his body, thumbs drawing circles in the fabric of her jacket. Felicity tugged on his lapels, deepening the kiss once more into something fiercely incredible before he lifted her and she coiled her legs around his waist.

He carried her blindly up the last few stairs until they stopped outside their room. An amorous moan bled from her lips onto his before they parted, the kiss achingly incomplete.

Their noses touched and their foreheads pressed together as they stayed, breathless in the moment. Her hands traced the lines of his body, returning with a room key dangled from her finger.

She kissed him again, quick and chaste. “We should go inside,” she sighed, feeling the hard wood rigid against her spine.  
“This is crazy,” he simpered before he kissed her back, nipping the edge of her blossomed lip.  
She moved her hand behind her back and deftly threaded the key into the lock. “All the best ideas are.”

The door opened with a tantric _click_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special I LOVE you to you readers that appreciate me ❤ I'm blessed.
> 
> Also, rating change next chapter ;)


	7. And I need you now tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smut.

They shed each other's jackets in a frantic tangle of sleeves and buttons and threw them unapologetically across the floor as they stumbled into the room and Oliver booted the door closed behind them.

Their lips were tangled; their tongues even more so, in a feisty, fiery kiss that had the makings of a shamelessly-passionate peep show.

Her nimble fingers tore down the buttoned placket of his shirt until the sides fell open and the pads of her fingers gently traced the valleys between his taut muscles under his tight thermal undershirt, which she lifted just enough to have easy access to his rolling abs, all while her lips stayed, full and open-mouthed, against his.

It was a new body, one she had never explored before and her eyes were begging to follow her fingers in the discovery. She nipped his lip with a flirty and breathy laugh before she pulled back, giving her eyes the treasure trove they sought out.

“Are you alright?” he asked with a smirk curling his mouth while Felicity patted her lips and hummed, delighted, at the mounds of sculptured muscles that stood before her like an Adonis statue made of warm skin and ever-so-slightly pliable flesh.

“You grew up,” she sighed without lifting her eyes. She ran her fingers up to the curves of his shoulders and pushed the shirt to the edges. “Like a lot,” she added before one final flick of each wrist pushed his shirt off the precipices. His last remaining clothing on his upper half was tight enough that the mounds and groves of his chest pushed through the weave of the fabric, pulling it taut.

His knuckles on one hand gently glided down her cheek to the delicate slope of her neck and followed the line of her soft, pink sweater until they reached the smooth dip near her clavicle.

“So did you,” he whispered as he leaned in and feathered a kiss over the rosy threads of her throat.

Felicity's eyes lolled closed in pleasure, enraptured by the feeling of his tongue drawing the softest of circles across her pulse points. She gained enough of her senses to drag her fingers away from his chest and toy with the fringes of her sweater, lifting it higher at one end as a coy smile flirted with her lips.

She stepped away from Oliver until the backs of her knees brushed against the olive-green comforter on the bed. His fingers barely grazed down her arm, stopping to stroke over the jutted out bone on her wrist.

“Change of heart?” he enquired as his fingertips soaked up the softness of her skin.

She lifted both sides of her sweater, sighing as the feeling of its fibres brushing against her achingly-aroused skin left a rush of prickles behind. He drunk in the sight of her milky skin, beautifully contrasted along the line of her hips where her snowy complexion met the rich blackness of her jeans. In one swift move, Felicity lifted the top from her body while she held her breath, hitched in the back of her throat. She hung the draping fabric from her fingertips before she dropped it into puddle on the floor. “Not in the slightest,” she answered atop a raspy exhale.

Before he could touch her, Felicity clambered up onto the bed and dug her toes into the puckered fabric. He was mesmerized by her and the adorable little crooked finger she was drawing him closer with, especially as it was accompanied by a slow sashay of her hips.

When he was standing right next to the bed, she crouched a little and twisted her fingers into his woven merino. “What about you?” she asked impishly, “are you having a change of heart?”

He tipped his chin just high enough to capture her lips with his own in a roughish and amorous kiss. “Not in the slightest,” he hushed against her lips, making her feel each word and taste every breath that came with them.

Without pause, as soon as his lips left off hers, Felicity tore his undershirt roughly up his body as she stood up, yanking up his arms along with it before it came off with a silent _pop_.

“Good,” she smiled as she threw the stripped clothing behind her.  
“Great,” he growled, snagging his bottom lip between his teeth until the trenches turned white while Felicity peeled down the zipper on her jeans.

It was almost directly in his eye line and as a pair of blue leopard print panties came into view Oliver breathed her in deeply, relishing the heady aroma of her arousal that teased his senses.

With the zipper open, her jeans hung loose on her hips but she left them there with a devilish grin before she danced her fingers behind her back and stilled them at the clasp of her powder-pink bra. Instinctively, Oliver stroked his tongue across his lips, knowing what lay behind the thin film of fabric. Her nipples were budded and tented the delicate satin and lace like perfect little pebbles that he wanted to roll around his mouth.

She unhooked the clasp and, banding her arm across her chest, she shrugged the thin straps down her arms.  
“Tell me when?” she quizzed with one hitched brow and a crinkled smile.  
“When what?” Oliver chuckled, dragging the top of his fingers up her ribs.  
“You said you hadn't thought about me in years.” She tipped her head to one shoulder and loosened her grip on her bra just enough so that one side dropped down, exposing the smooth round of her left breast. “How many years?”

He groaned out a laugh as he brushed his hand down the back of his neck. “I...,” he paused, fumbling for words. “Don't make me say it.”  
She let the right side drop too, very nearly exposing her erect, rosy-coloured nipples to his wanton gaze. “How long?”  
“At least 10 years,” he answered.  
His dimple twitched.  
“Liar,” she scoffed with a jaunty laugh.  
“5 years.”  
Another dimple twitch.

She let go of her bra and it dropped down between them. His body physically moaned as he came face to face with those perfect round breasts and tightly coiled, wine-tinted tips. He traced a finger along the underside of her breast, watching as her powdery skin became dusted in fine goosebumps.  
She stepped back, her breasts bouncing in the flex of the mattress under her feet as his fingers fell away. “How long Oliver?”

She hooked her thumbs over the waistband of her jeans and shimmied them over the lacy edge of her panties, pausing to chew on the centre of her bottom lip.  
“I don't know, a couple...,” he paused trying to tighten the skin around his dimple. “A couple of years.” It didn't work and that little giveaway sung like a beacon on his perfectly chiselled face.

She rode the coarse denim fabric over her ass and down to her thighs before they fell to her ankles. He inhaled her; her sweet fragrance tip toeing up his nostrils and dripping down his throat like fruity dew on his taste buds. Her scent alone was enough to satisfy him a million times over and it took much of his willpower to not bury his face between her legs and take up tenancy there.

She bent down just enough that if he really stretched it, his tongue might be able to balance just beneath her nipple. “How long?” she asked for a third time, this time drawing fluid shapes over his naked, slightly sweaty, chest; spiking his temperature another few degrees upwards.

His hands shadowed the back of her knees as he kept his eyes focused on the coquettish glint in hers.  
He leaned his body forward, bowing at the waist, just enough to balance a delicately light kiss on the cusp of her collar bone before he drew his lips up to her mouth, stretching his calves until they ached. “A few months tops,” he huskily whispered before he cupped her at the soft spots behind her knees and tipped her up, sending Felicity onto her back with her arms falling above her head.

She gasped moments before her face lit up with a giggled smile as her body hit the mattress with a _whoosh_ of air. His dimple didn't twitch that time.

He hovered his face above hers, gliding his eyes across her perfect figure lying, nearly-naked, beneath him. Her hair was billowed around her head like a blonde halo, her eyes were on him, bright and full of life, her lips were still coloured a blushing pink but it had faded a little in the middle and they were now swollen and a little wet. Her breathing was slow and steady, lifting her chest with each third, deeper breath.

She was stunning, beautiful, _perfect_ ... just how he had had always imagined she would be.

He kissed her neck slowly, ravishing tiny nips into the thin, near translucent skin of her throat. He could feel her pulse beating like a distant drum beneath the surface and his nose was drenched in the soft, powdery scent of her lingered natural perfume; _vanilla with a hint of cranberry,_ it smelled good enough to eat and Oliver soon found himself savouring the taste of it on his tongue with drawn, decadent moans while her body writhed under him and she filled his ears with her own sultry sounds of pleasure; a soft purr, a low hum, a throaty mewl. _Fuck, he'd take every one._

Her chest rolled against his, soft rounds against hard pecs, the juxtaposition of them both making for a heavenly graze of friction, dampened by the slowly-building beads of sweat on their skin.

Soon though he moved on from her neck, dragging his moist lips down her collar bone and pausing at the centre of her breast bone. Her aroma changed at that point, mixed with her heady arousal, the vanilla became tinged with musk and the fruit essence drew more warmth from her skin as though the cranberries were now stewing on a stove. She smelled like a meal and Oliver was starving.

His mouth veered to one side and he amorously teased loops around her nipple, tracing the fine lines that crinkled in the skin and listening to the heavenly sounds of rapture that fluttered from her mouth. Her fleshy breast moved and contorted in his mouth as he sucked and massaged it between his lips. It was like silky clay moulded by his mouth and shaped by the hand that cupped it.

While he braced himself on his elbow, his other hand slid under her rear and spread his fingers across her full cheeks while his thumb pressed into her folds, the wispy fabric of her panties wicking up her arousal before it started to bleed through the weave.

“Felicity,” he roused as he kissed back up towards her chin while he continued to stroke through her folds. Her eyes plucked open, she hadn't even realised they had closed. “How do you feel about oral sex?”  
She swallowed a breath before it sputtered out, surprised by the directness of his question. “I'm for”, she answered gasping as Oliver pressed his thumb against her clit and made her body shiver.  
He winked. “I was hoping you'd say that.”

He kissed back down her chest, massaging each breast, one after the other, before his mouth reached the supple softness of her belly.  
“Very much for,” she sighed as his tongue circled her navel.

His bearded chin grazed her mound, prickling through her panties as he breathed hot air against her skin. Felicity reached to take off the offending cloth between them, but he stopped her before she could.  
“Not yet, those can stay on,” he spoke, his words almost dark in their sensuality and with the deepness of his tone. It was quite unexpected and Felicity felt a tingle down her limbs at hearing it.

He kissed her gently over the fabric before he nuzzled his nose into her heady folds. Every breath he took was trapped in the weave of her panties, creating a hot cloud above her tremoring sex, which left her drunk with the sensation.

She stammered his name on ragged breaths while her fingers knotted in the sheets. Her whole chest was flushed scarlet from the underside of her chin like a waterfall that faded in colour near her belly.

He continued exploring her sex, possessive of every reaction she had to him. His tongue tented the fabric and the tip teased her hooded clit until her body was jerking, like the first sparks of an inferno.

As she neared the pinnacle of orgasm, her scent evolved once more; it was richer than the first trickles of arousal and the soft wisps of vanilla were now much muskier, carrying a fragrance like cinnamon and it was honestly _the best fucking thing he'd ever inhaled._

Her back arched seeking a deeper connection as she ground her hips towards his face, grazing his unshaven jaw into the tops of her thighs, which would surely leave a mark for the next morning, and whimpering tiny mewls that told Oliver what it was that she desperately sought.  
“Are you going to come Felicity?” he asked, the words were muffled between her legs and felt like firecrackers through her wet folds.  
“Mhmm”, she nodded frenetically as hair spilled over her face and soft tendrils glued themselves to her sweaty forehead.  
“Good,” he snuffled into her sex, sucking her in deeply and pulling her clit taut. “I want to make you come. I want to taste you.” He nipped at her sex making her shoulders convulse into the scrunched up comforter. “I want to savour you.” He lapped at her juices as they bled through the gauzy panties. “I want to feel your warm spend down the back of my throat while you pant my name.”  
Her panties felt like torture to her sensitive skin, but the kind of torture that made you walk a fantastic line between pleasure and pain until one overpowered the other.

“Will you do that for me Felicity?” Dark, raspy and whispered.  
Her throat made a sort of _humph_ sound as her eyes wildly blinked and her lips blossomed with sobbed moans that resembled a pleading, “Yes.”  
His thumbs anchored her hips to the mattress and for a moment she thrashed against them until he soothed her with a deep and amorous kiss to her nether lips. Then he rose off of her, her scent filling the air and her body now misted with sweat.  
“How long?” he asked before he licked his lips and tasted the glossy remnants her first arousal had left there.  
Felicity shuddered, her body so close to climax that the sudden severing actually made her sob out a breath.  
“How long since you thought about me?” he continued to enquire as his fingers trickled down her writhing belly and over her aching mound; just barely holding her body at the very edge of climax.

She blew a puff of air and her hair lifted off her face as she stared him down with feral eyes. She had no coyness left to lie, only the crushing need to be tipped just that little bit further.  
“The night we both ended up here,” she panted, “before I left New York.” She smacked her lips together trying to gasp for air as his fingers skimmed the outskirts of her sex. “I saw you on the TV.” She stopped and screwed her eyes shut as a fresh sprinkling of rosy-blush coloured her cheeks.

Oliver dropped his mouth to her sex, nearly devouring it whole and making Felicity cry out in undulated pleasure.  
“I thought about how fucking you might feel,” she admitted without filter.  
He tugged her panties down her leg, they were wet and sticky and she could feel them as they grazed her inner thighs. “How bad did you want to fuck me?” he cooed and she could hear the smile in his voice. _That bastard._  
She bucked her hips and caught the thick length of his middle finger between her folds, soaking his digit. “About as badly as I want you now,” she rasped as her hips dropped back to the mattress.

He stripped her panties to her knees and then sliced his tongue through her dripping folds making her once again cry out salaciously. Oliver's tongue was relentless, swirling through her folds and lashing over her clit, a fervour of different pressures and movements that had her head whipping side to side.

His lips smacked together before he sucked her deeply and probed his tongue around her soaking entrance. When he delved it, wriggling inside her, Felicity came in a rush of warm release and frantically panted breaths while a rosy glow flushed down her body and into the petals of her sex.

He did just as he'd said he would, lapping up her spend to savour the deliciously-rich elixir as it slid down his throat while she rode through the waves of an orgasm much stronger than she'd ever felt before.

When it was finally over and her body simply twitched through the very last spasms of it, and he'd licked her sex virtually dry, Oliver dropped to her side and drew lazy circles around her dewy stomach.

“So how did your imagined fucking go when you thought about me?” he quipped with an impish grin.  
Felicity lifted her nearly limp hand and slapped it against his shoulder as she struggled to regulate her breathing. “That was cruel Oliver Queen.”  
He kissed the warm, pinkish threads of her throat. “Allow me to make it up to you,” he hummed into her tepid skin while his hand spread her legs open. Cool air whipped up between her sensitive folds as her jellified legs dangled off the edge of the bed.

“I'm not sure I can,” she puffed as she caught him at the wrist and stilled his hand. He nodded softly as he retracted it and gently brushed back strands of hair from her forehead.  
“This is new,” he remarked as his free hand traced the tattoo under her right breast.  
“It's a dandelion,” she explained as his feathery touch had her skin shivering. More specifically it was the seed head of a dandelion with a few of the fluffy seed parachutes caught in an imagined breeze and floating away. It was dainty, no larger than her pinky finger, and artistically rendered, and the colour was strikingly beautiful against her milky complexion.  
He smiled before he leaned closer. “Make a wish,” he ushered. Her expression lit up with a smile that was unmistakably _Felicity_. Lightness. Happiness. His perfect little good luck charm.

She nodded softly and Oliver blew on the tattoo, his eyes tracking the tiny seeds floating away.  
“What did you wish for?” he asked as he held back her hair and kissed her cheek.  
She smiled sweetly while her fingers grazed down the side of his unshaven jaw stopping at his chin before they fell away. “I guess you'll have to wait and find out,” she sighed, near breathless.

Minutes past and Felicity curled towards his chest as her breathing slowly returned to normal. His fingers glided down her body, over her mound and dipped into her silky folds. Her clit was still sensitive to the touch and even the lightest graze had her back arching off the bed and her toes curling into the skewed bed linen as they climbed the side of the bed.  
“Wait,” she panted as he pressed achingly soft kisses down her ribs.  
He stopped as soon as the word left her mouth, stilling both his fingers and his mouth before he lifted the latter off her skin.  
She lolled her head towards him, curious eyes framed by long black lashes and slightly smudged eyeliner that was now a sultry, smoky eye.  
“Is everything okay?” he enquired, concern threading his tone.  
She bobbed her head in a nod as she sat up on one elbow. “I want to see you Oliver,” she whispered as she plucked gently at the shorts of hair above his ear. “All of you.”

He took her hand and kissed the line of her knuckles before he rested it on her hip and stood up off the bed. Felicity scooted backwards up the bed, kicking off the last shreds of her clothing as she went, until her back reclined against the timber headboard; a lacquer-covered light oak.

She grabbed a pillow from one side and placed it on her lap, covering her naked torso, after which Oliver popped the top button on his pants and Felicity cheered playfully when he dropped them without any lingered fanfare. His charcoal boxer briefs were tight around his thighs and very obviously tented by his erect and throbbing cock.

She smacked her lips together before her tongue peeked out between them. In that moment she was 17, sitting on a bed in a hotel room above their senior prom waiting nervously to see what she'd dreamt about a few more times than she would ever readily admit; and he was the boy she trusted, the boy with the ginger wave and a baseball bat slung over his shoulder, the boy she very probably loved. Her best friend.

There was a tremble in Oliver's hand that he wasn't expecting and, as his palms grew a little clammy, he swallowed down his nervous energy and tugged his underwear down his muscular thighs until his rigid cock sprung free like a diving board.

Felicity had seen it less than 24 hours ago and it had been an impressive length flaccid and hung like a trunk between his legs, but now stretched and planked, white creamy skin pulled taut over winding blue veins; in all its cock glory, it was something else and she felt a very distinctive shudder between her legs as her walls crushed together at the prospect of that wonderful thing invading her.

He had a trimmed thatch of hair and his two balls sat only slightly dropped on either side of the base underneath. The ridge of his cock was prominent and the slit glistened with a few beads of pre-cum. You weren’t supposed to be quite so drawn to such a phallic, but it had her utterly captivated.

“Felicity?” Oliver repeated and her head snapped up to meet his curious glare.  
“Huh?”  
“I asked if you had a preference,” he effused, standing there so very naked in front of her at the end of the bed.  
She blinked blankly at him. “And by preference do you mean...” She gulped through the possibilities, _preference of holes, preference of position, preference of bondage apparatus..._  
“Ribbed or standard?” he interrupted her thoughts.  
_Condoms_. She audibly sighed, _thank fuck_ because those other preferences were better left for a different day.  
“You have both?” she said with a distinctive smirk.  
He placed two different foil packets on the bedside table, and Felicity watched his cock bob as he walked.  
“My manager insists,” Oliver shrugged before he realised how that must have sounded. “That I carry them just in case, not specifically both, I just have both,” he clarified with an awkward wince.  
“No baby Oliver's running around then?” she jested as she rolled to the side and her lap pillow fell behind her.

He kneeled on the edge of the bed and Felicity lifted herself a little higher until their fingers met and entwined.  
“Ribbed,” she answered with a wink before she tugged him easily onto the bed.

In a nimble move, Oliver was soon above her, shadowing her body completely in his own frame. His hands were balled into fists that held his weight above her and his legs were bent between her legs. Her hands skimmed over his chest, feeling each convex, curve and valley up close, studying them with such diligence that it crinkled the bridge of her nose.

He bent slowly at the elbows and kissed the bridge, smoothing away the thought lines as she glanced up at him.  
“Did you mean it?” she asked while her fingers scratched surface trenches down his back. “Did you really love me?”  
“I was 18, I don't think I knew much about real love,” he admitted with a hapless shrug, “But as much as I knew, I knew it was always you Felicity.”  
She pressed her knees into his waist as one hand slipped between their bodies and coiled around the base of his thrumming cock, sending a jolt of lightning coursing up his body and down the back of his thighs.

She tenderly kissed him, slow and almost a little unsure as she guided the head of his cock to sweep between her folds before she pumped his length once, twice, a long third time which made him moan huskily.  
“Show me,” she breathed against his lips as she dipped his tip into her pulsing entrance.

Oliver plunged his cock into her in one slow and steady dive watching the silent gasp break from her lips until he was completely seated inside her tight, wet cave. His mouth dropped to the slope of her neck, now misted in sweet-salty perspiration. He kept himself still, taking pleasure from the tiny clenches her body showered him in as it adjusted to the pleasurable intrusion. He dragged his kisses up to the delicate skin below her lobe just as Felicity squeezed his cock tightly and tipped her hips to press his head into her cushioned wall.

“Fuck,” he sighed, his eyes rolling back as a delirium of sensations rained down on his throbbing cock. “It's just like I...” he sighed, “...imagined.” The word would have been lost in his breathless pant if it wasn't for the fact he was so close to her ear.

She cupped his face and gently lifted his head from her neck, rolling her hips to skim his cock in a 360 twist of pressure and pleasure.  
“When was the first time you imagined me like this Oliver?” she breathed, his name bleeding out more like a moan as she lifted her hips off the bed and tipped them just enough to slip another half inch of him inside of her.

His eyes swayed down her body, naked and under him and he knew the answer, it rolled off his tongue the moment it entered his mind. “The night you kissed me,” he admitted, closing his eyes to the sensation of her budded nipples grazing his chest with every deep breath she took. “It's why I had to leave, I wanted _more_ than a kiss from you.”

She chuckled effervescently and the shake of her body was felt like a ricocheted echo down to Oliver's cock, making him moan hotly.  
“What's so funny?” he breathed.  
They locked eyes as Felicity pressed her ass into the mattress hard enough to slip Oliver an inch out of her. “I wanted more than a kiss too,” she replied before she bucked upwards and slammed that lost inch back into her pulsing sex. She repeated it, speeding up each time until Felicity was riding his cock from underneath.

Lost in the feeling of her taking him hard and fast, Oliver toppled off balanced when her palm pressed into one of his shoulders and, with the reflexes of a cat, she was on top of him riding him like a mechanical bull.  
“If I remember correctly,” she keened before she slipped his wet cock out from inside her and sandwiched it's rigid form between her dripping sex and his sweat-misted belly. “We were like this,” she finished as she leaned down, a palm anchored to each of his shoulders.

Their foreheads touched and their noses brushed as the sounds of their heartbeats echoed in time and their musky aromas swirled in the air around them.  
“Your hands,” she mewled as he moved them to her hips, thumbs pointing towards her centre, drawing tiny circles. She smiled breathily before she wordlessly encouraged him to hold her tighter, which he did, gripping her as he had done once before. “And then I,” she whispered before she gently puckered her lips and softly kissed him, mimicking the first time.

She felt his rod twitch reactively like it had done back then too, but this time his mouth parted and his tongue swarmed into her mouth, exploring every inch of the moist cavern. There was no fear in his eyes and no sudden departure.

The kiss was severed when she slipped down his thighs and his cock sprung up like a jack in the box. He leaned over and grabbed the condom, _ribbed for pleasure,_ and tore open the foil packet. Felicity took the condom and threaded it slowly down his aching cock before she kissed the rubbery tip.

She pinched the air from the end and ran her palm down the shaft before Oliver lifted her chin and smiled. “I'm not going anywhere tonight,” he promised.  
She sunk herself onto his cock, swallowing him inside her cushiony sex before she guided his hand to her chest and he slalomed down her smooth slopes while she skimmed her nails over his pecs. Soon she was riding him slowly, building a pace that had them both on the brink of breathlessness. “Did you want me like this Oliver?” she whispered.  
“I wanted you,” he chanted as his eyes stayed locked to hers.  
Felicity thrust her hips upwards before she ground back down into him, the sound of it was raw and wet. “You should have taken me then,” she remarked, a quiver in her words and an arch in her brow. “Because I wanted you too.”  
The hand holding her hip moved just enough so his thumb could slice between her folds and roll back the hood of her clit making her yowl seductively before they turned together on the bed a second time. Once Oliver was on top again, he pinned her wrists to the headboard with one hand and a puckish grin.  
“I wanted you like this,” he purred against her clammy chest as he dotted it with fine and impetuous kisses.  
She felt for his cock, and once it was in her grasp she ran it back and forth through her dripping folds, coating the sleeve with her silky arousal. “I would have let you,” she cooed as threads of neediness thinned her voice to a whisper while her legs coiled around his waist and his cock, driven by her, skirted around her entrance.

Oliver lifted up onto his knees before he reared forward and thrust himself deep inside her, making her cry out a curse word in loud, unabashed ecstasy that their neighbours most definitely heard.  
"Show me,” she begged as she moved one hand to his waist where it could rock with each thrust. His skin was hot and wet and it's dampness bled into the creases of her palm.

The hand he had pinned to the headboard dropped above her head and their fingers soon entwined, holding hands as he built up a rhythm.

As the pace quickened, Felicity could feel the small ridges of the condom rolling against her stretched and sensitive walls, like a vibration inside her that became more powerful the faster Oliver thrust.

The ridges on the inverse of the condom had Oliver bucking faster to feel the electric friction they gave his throbbing shaft with each and every thrust. The warmth of her sex was not as decadent sheathed behind thin latex, but what was lost there was made up for in her radiating body heat that he drunk in as he frantically kissed whatever spots on her chest that he could reach.

The bed that was older than them started to rock on its wooden legs as their bodies thrashed together in erratic and frantic sex until her body convulsed and her walls constricted around him making every pass through even tighter as she gripped his hand so tightly above her head that their knuckles were bled white.

Her second climax of the night tumbled into an immediate third when Oliver reached between their hot, slapping bodies and roughly pinched her clit before soothing it with strokes from the pad of his thumb.

Both times she held onto him, and he to her, and his name dripped like warm honey from her full lips. “Oliver...Oli...vur. OH..LUH..VER.”

It was nothing short of the most perfect thing he'd ever heard and, teamed with the sensation of her tremoring walls around him, Oliver found his climax soon after in fitful jerks and long ribbons of seed that filled the condom and with her name kissed into her glistening neck, aromatic with her musky scent.

Sweat covered their bodies and filled their nostrils as they fell apart; side by side and curled towards each other.

A few moments of wordlessly panting was all they could muster until Felicity finally spoke.  
“Ribbed; definitely a good choice,” she chuckled breathless as his arms enveloped her and pulled her into an embrace against his chest.  
He smiled while he kissed her sticky temple. “A great choice,” he sighed.

_It was always her._

**》》《《**

  
**25 December**

It was the early hours of the morning, 1am, Oliver discovered as he squinted at his phone. Felicity was asleep beside him with her back to his chest and her hair falling onto his pillow with a fragrance not unlike a Caribbean island. He lifted his body onto an elbow and watched her in the thin slither of moonlight that sliced through the slats of the few blinds that didn't quite sit right.

He watched as she took a breath and her naked shoulder rose before it dropped on the slow exhale. She slept with pouted lips and splayed lashes and with one hand tucked under her scrunched up pillow. He took a photo in his mind before he brushed the lightest touch over the curve of her shoulder and down her arm, just to be sure this moment was real.

She moaned softly and rolled her back towards him. _It was real_. He stayed a few moments longer before he slipped out from under the covers, slow and careful so he didn't wake her. She stirred a little but she didn't wake.

Oliver took his phone from the bedside table and found his boxer briefs at the foot of the bed. He silently pulled them on as he navigated the dark room with the backlight of his phone screen; Thea had shown him the torch feature once but he had forgotten the information only a matter of days later.

He tiptoed into the bathroom but left the door slightly ajar, knowing it closed with a creak and a _thud_ that was sure to startle Felicity awake.

He climbed onto the edge of the bathtub and carefully pushed the plastic curtain out of his way as he leaned towards the only window in the bathroom; a high one above the vanity with aluminium locks that only allowed it to open an inch or so.

He stood as still as he could in the slightly odd contortion and looked down at his phone. _One bar of service._

He had discovered the tiny pocket of cell service quite by accident the day before when he'd moved to try and open the window to let some of the steam out so he could clear the mirror enough to trim his beard. Not realising his phone was still in his hand, he had received a text from his mother asking for his preference between Whiskey or Bourbon for Christmas.

He hadn't told Felicity about this little anomaly yet because when they weren't bickering like children, they were fucking like rabbits; finally falling asleep after hour 4.

He found the contact and dialled the number. Expecting a voicemail, Oliver was surprised to hear a groggy “Hello?”  
_Shit_.  
The fact it is was 2am where he was calling was now tortuously clear.  
“Sorry, I was expecting voicemail,” Oliver remarked, grimacing as he listened to the deep sigh down the phone.

“When you get a call from your biggest client at 2am it's usually important. I'm figuring this isn't,” the other man groaned.  
“Come on Digg, is that all I am to you, just your client?” Oliver jested.  
He could almost hear his friend's eyes rolling.  
“Why are you calling me at 2am Oliver while I'm in bed with my wife on Christmas eve?”  
Oliver rubbed the back of his neck. “Technically it's Christmas _day_ now.”  
“Oliver.” Long groan, undoubtedly with a clenched jaw.  
“Right. Sorry,” Oliver hastily apologised. “Do you remember that ball I made you buy?”

John Diggle, his manager from the beginning, slapped his lips noisily together. “You mean the one you made me pay an exorbitant price for only for you to tell me to put it in a safety deposit box like a decade ago? That ball?” he probed sarcastically.  
“That's the one,” Oliver answered with a smile he tried to contain.  
“What about it?”  
“I'm going to need it back.” Oliver leaned a little until he could see out the bathroom door and make out the shadow of Felicity still lying in bed. “I found the person it belongs to.”  
“It's about fucking time,” John commended. “She must be something.”  
Oliver gaped, “How do you know it's for a woman?”  
“No one pays $2 million dollars for a second home run ball unless it's for a woman.”

 _He wasn't wrong_.

“I'll have it shipped priority to Starling,” John added.  
“Thanks man, I appreciate it.”  
“I'm also working on getting you out of that nowhere town, so I'll call you at a reasonable time tomorrow,” he remarked, his voice now a lot less groggy.  
“No rush,” Oliver assured as he watched Felicity begin to stir.  
John wasn’t finished with his superstar client, friend and occasional pain in his ass just yet. “You have that meeting on the 27th, you know the one that will cost you 8 figures if you miss it.”  
“Sure, sure,” Oliver whispered when he saw Felicity moving as though she was seeking him out in the bed. “We'll talk tomorrow. Thanks. Bye.”  
Oliver hung up and John mumbled to the disconnect tone, “You rung me.”

Oliver walked back into the bedroom and slid his phone inconspicuously onto the kitchen counter. Felicity had roused a little and she lifted her head when she saw him.  
“Everything okay?” she asked softly, her voice a little thin and throaty as she dredged sleep from the corner of her eye.  
Oliver climbed onto the bed and stalked on all fours towards her. “Perfect now,” he growled before he stole her lips in a wild, near carnal kiss; that she was absolutely into.  
“You still have some ribbed ones?” she quizzed impishly into the still night.  
“Yes ma'am.”

_It was always her._


	8. You make a promise

“Morning,” Oliver said with a smile as the early morning sun filtered into the motel room, bathing both of them, and the bedsheets they were tangled up in, in an almost reverent light.

Her body was listless and saturated in a hazy glow of something that, she imagined, was akin to euphoria. They hadn't slept _a lot,_ but she wasn't tired, her body was simply so... _spent_ , that the most movement she could muster was the tiny trickle of fingers across his wrist.

Oliver had a little more energy to burn, so he took her hand and brushed a peppering of tiny kisses over the back of her knuckles.  
“Morning,” she sighed, happy as he looked up her arm at him; his eyes like spectacles of blue diamonds refracting light. But then she saw a flicker steal a moment of joy from them and she saw his shoulders tense and his lower jaw roll forward. _Something was wrong._

Before she could ask him what it was, he spoke two shaky words. “I'm sorry.” Her palm moved to his cheek and he smiled, content at the warmth it blanketed there. “I'm sorry I didn't try harder, that I didn't find a way to talk to you. To fix this. To find out...”

She stopped him with a chaste kiss on his lips, lingered but barely felt. “Don't,” she began with a whisper that skimmed his parted lips. “We can't do that to ourselves Oliver. We can't take back our stubbornness or the last 12 years of,” she huffed as she flicked her eyes to the ceiling, “mess. But we _can_ have the moments now. We can _make_ something of the next 12 years,” she blushed realising how forward that might seem; she didn't know all that much of his life now to simply assume she could be a part of it. “I mean if you want, I, I mean,” she stumbled for the right words but it turned out she didn't need them.  
“I'm pretty set on spending the rest of my life with you, if you'll have me,” Oliver spoke simply, no jest or irony to be found, only the words of a man who absolutely intended on following through on them.

He laughed as her eyes grew wide with surprise. “I'm not suggested we fly to Vegas today, you know, even if we could. But I mean it Felicity, bar you being part of some weird cult or a mass murderer, I'm in.” He turned to kiss the hand on his cheek. “Or a Yankees fan,” he added with a puckish laugh.

A moment lapsed silently before Felicity rolled her lips, hummed and then spoke. “Define ‘weird’ for the cult thing just so I know the parameters I can work within. Like on a scale of living in a commune to virgin sacrifices, what are we talking here?”  
Oliver's lips pounced onto hers as his hands tickled into her waist making her squeal loudly for a fitful of seconds before they stilled and Oliver was left hovering just above her with soft sighs bleeding from both of their mouths.  
“I'm in too,” she remarked softly as her fingertips brushed along his hairline.

He leaned down and kissed her forehead, a moment so tender in its purity, that she wished for it to stay locked in her memory forever, before he slid from the bed.  
“I'm going to clean up and then go find you coffee.” Felicity sat up in the bed, the white sheet pressed across her chest. “You stay there and,” he exhaled through a smile, “just be you.”

“Why did you keep the note?” she asked as Oliver collected clean clothes from his suitcase.  
He dropped his chin to his chest and softly shook his head before he looked up, a small rosy blush at the apples of his cheeks. “I thought maybe one day I could make you change your mind. Show you what I've achieved, that maybe I could be good enough then, it's silly right?” he chuffed out a laugh, but it couldn’t disguise the 12 years of sadness that note had tormented him with.  
For a moment Felicity considered what she would have done in his large shoes that night, she trundled up to him and demanded his motel room, knowing that note sat in his back pocket; and honestly her first thought involved pouring the contents of that soda can over her head. She absently touched her head, _good thing Oliver wasn’t her._  
“You are good enough, you were back then too,” Felicity promised, her words soft but genuine. “You can throw it away now because you have nothing to prove.”

His face lit up as he walked backwards towards the bathroom.  
“I love you,” he said with a spritely chuckle as he tapped the frame of the door.  
It was simple.  
“I love you too.”  
So simple.

Felicity listened to the shower turn on before she caught herself smiling quite stupidly into a pillow; a little like she had 10 years ago sitting in her dorm flat lounge at MIT with her flatmate Andrea and Andrea’s sports-mad boyfriend, Trent, a basketball scholarship student at the nearby Boston University.

She could recount that day so clearly.

**》》《《**

**June 2008**

He hair was in that deep black phase and her clothing was something of a mismatched grunge rocker come nerdy gamer. It was a look she was trialling and it lasted about a year.

“What are we watching?” she asked, despite already knowing the answer, as she sat down cross-legged on the couch and popped a pillow on her lap. In fact, she'd known about this day for quite a while. It was no accident she was home.

“Football drafts,” Andrea said dryly as she continued to file her nails on the other end of the sectional couch.  
“Baseball babe,” Trent corrected before he grabbed a handful of pretzels from between them.  
“Either way,” the svelte and pretty brunette said as she rolled her eyes, “you can make him change it if you want.”

Felicity shrugged as nonchalantly as she could. “Oh it's fine, I don't mind.”  
The nearly 7ft boy next to her looked up, surprised. “You know sports?”  
His surprise was a little amusing, but she couldn’t exactly blame him; she hardly resembled the ‘type’. “I don't know a lot, but it's fine, please watch.”  
He offered her a beer and she accepted with a gracious smile.

The first pick was to The Giants and their choice was a pitcher from South Carolina. The Detroit Tigers had second choice and Felicity found herself nibbling on the edge of her thumbnail as her hand white-knuckled around the chilled bottle.  
_Oliver didn't like Michigan,_ she found herself thinking before she sluiced her throat with a guzzle of light beer.  
They chose a senior from California. He'd remained undrafted from the previous year and Trent seemed surprised by the pick.

The Boston Red Sox were next. Trent leaned forward rubbing his palms on the edge of his knees. “This should be good,” he muttered to himself.  
“Why?” Felicity asked casually before she took another drink.  
“They need a heavy hitter it's what they're really missing,” he prattled, happy to educate her, even though, in reality, she didn’t need it.  
“Oh yeah?”  
“Yeah and there are maybe two that would be worth their time.” She took another sip as he continued. “But they both have cons”.  
“They do?” Another sip.

As the commentators talked Trent turned to Felicity and nodded. “Martinez is a great hitter, but he's had a lot of injury time. He's also much older than most starting out.”  
She studied the bubbles in her beer. “And the other one?”  
She took another drink to disguise the fact she knew exactly who the other hitter was.

“Queen, he is phe-non-menal. Like the guy has cannons instead of arms,” Trent gushed and Felicity bit the inside of her lip to stop herself from grinning.  
“But?”  
“He's young, if they draft him it'll be a record and a risk. No one has ever seen him outside of college ball.”  
She chewed her lip. “Who would you pick?”  
He grazed his smooth chin as he stared into the middle distance. “Qu-,”

He stopped when the announcement came through.  
_**The Red Sox drafted Oliver Queen from Louisiana State University.**_

“YES!” Trent cheered as he bolted upright and fist-bumped the air.  
“Well done superstar,” Felicity whispered as she brushed back a tear. “I knew you had it in you.”  
“Wait,” Trent gaped. He'd overhead her. “You know him?”  
Andrea, who had since looked up from her self-manicure was suddenly interested as Oliver's picture and stats played across the screen.  
“He's from Starling,” she remarked, reading the fact scrolling across the screen. “Isn't that where you're from. Do you know this guy? And holy shit, this is what baseball players look like?”  
“We went to the same school, that's it,” she played it down with a shrug. She stood up and finished her beer before carrying the empty to the small kitchen.

“Are you going to keep watching?” Trent asked as he settled back onto the couch.  
“No, I'm good,” she answered she a smile.

She'd seen what she needed to.

Felicity was also at his first game later that same year and when Oliver stood in the batter's box she closed her eyes and blew a breath into the air.  
_For luck._

They won that game.

**》》《《**

When Oliver returned to the motel room with coffee Felicity was dressed and sitting at the table, turning a pen through her fingers.

“Ah you moved,” he growled playfully before he put the take-out cup in front of her and kissed the crown of her head.  
“Sorry I realised how much work I still have to do,” she hummed without taking her eyes off the paper.  
“You know what always helps me work?” Oliver said with a roguish grin as he leaned down onto the table to get her attention.  
Felicity looked over the brim of her two-tone glasses. “If you say sex I'm going to thump you,” she warned.

Oliver straightened up, brushed his hand down the sleeve of his shirt and rolled his lips before he took a step back and smiled. “Sex.”

Felicity got up from her chair to keep her word but Oliver was a hair faster and moved before she could land the punch. He caught her at the waist and the two spun around until she pushed him onto the bed. Before she could leave him there, Oliver sat up and encircled her waist pressing his cheek to the small of her back.

“As much as I like the idea,” Felicity sighed as she turned around in his arms and he nestled his chin into her navel. “And trust me, I, _very_ much, like the idea, but I have a tonne of work to do in the hopes I'll somehow get out of here and not get fired.”  
He looked around her to the spread of paper across the table.  
“What are you working on?”  
She chewed her lip as she considered the trade secrets of it all but then she saw his curious eyes and that slightly lopsided smile and she knew he could be trusted.

“Well it was a pace maker that was smaller and more reliable than anything else on the market. Specifically developed for children to lessen the risks and complications of undergoing so many surgeries. It works with pulses, like sound and vibrations and electronic waves which can be adjusted outside of the body. It all very technical but in the end it would, in theory, grow with the wearer, adapt to them, and never need to be replaced. We are hoping to get the trials into a private hospital in Starling.” She exhaled when she’d finally made it to the end.

“You made pacemakers for tiny babies,” he gushed.  
“That's one of its uses yes,” she nodded as her fingers knotted at the back of his neck.  
“I hit a ball around a field and you... you're trying to save babies.”  
“Trying being the operative word. Apparently according to my boss there isn't enough money in tiny pace makers but there was something else to come out of our research.” His curious brow wanted her to continue. “Electric pulses or sounds waves can cause muscles to spasm. It can help with muscle denigration in sports injuries for instance.”  
He nodded, he understood that. “Or for patients with muscle loss after a surgery, it could be adapted to stimulate that too,” she continued.  
“And he wants you to sell it on these points?”  
“Oh I wish,” she groaned. “No, there is also one other appendage it can help.” She looked down that his crotch.  
He followed her eyes downwards. “Wait... there?”  
“These vibrations can stimulate and otherwise dysfunctional penis. Electric Viagra with less side effects, no prescription, one simple operation. It can also give a stronger erection, thus making said appendage appear, eerr, larger.”

“Wow,” Oliver gaped.  
“Right. From making baby pace makers to making dick enhancers. Not so great,” she quipped before she pressed her forehead to his and sighed. “It wouldn't be so bad I suppose if my boss wasn't an insufferable jerk. I bet hitting a ball around a field sounds pretty good right now.”

“Drink your coffee, do your work but then we are going out to get lunch. Understood?” His hands rolled over her pert ass. “And then I'm having you for desert.”  
He massaged her ass and she sighed wantonly. “Understood,” she hummed.

**》》《《**

A little while later, Oliver finally managed to get Felicity out of the motel room and into the little diner on Main Street. It was quaint and cosy and they had, besides two other patrons, the place to themselves. Ivy grew from terracotta pots hung off ceiling beams. Cinnamon scented the air and a fireplace in the corner gave it a sort of old English bookshop feel; the row of ‘take a book leave a book’ also helped to create this persona.

“So I talked to Tommy while you were working,” Oliver started, folding his hands around the white ceramic mug.  
Felicity looked up from her dark hot chocolate with two marshmallows; no judgment. “And?”  
“He says he didn't say a word. I deleted the photos he had. He also says hi and that he,” Oliver paused to make speech marks with his fingers, “thinks it's ‘about fucking time we talked’. So.”  
“And you believe him?” she asked, it was neither accusatory or sarcastic.  
Oliver nodded. “He's been my friend since we were 4, I believe him.”  
She smiled and bobbed her head softly. She had known Tommy as long as she had known Oliver but the two of them were not as close, more of a friendship through Oliver than anything else. “Then I believe him too.”

“He did say that a few years ago when he was visiting his parents, McKenna was living there after been fired from another job and,” the speech marks again, “ ‘pursuing her acting career’.”  
“How did that pan out?” Felicity chided to her hot chocolate.  
“Spoiler alert,” Oliver leaned in and whispered across the table, “it didn't work out for her.”  
Felicity couldn't disguise her smile and she was relieved to see Oliver smiling at the karma soaked revelation too.

“Anyway he said his parents had moved his room around a little and his bed was across the other side. One night he was sitting at the desk where his bed used to be and over an air vent, McKenna was next door making some money over the phone. He didn't elaborate what that meant.”  
Felicity stifled a laugh, just managing to keep the velvety drink in her mouth. She had an idea what that meant and judging by Oliver's grimace so did he.

“He said he could hear every word she said as clear as if she was in the room with him. He blocked up the air vent and the noise went away but he was scarred ever since apparently,” Oliver chuckled. “The point is that if he could hear her, there is a good possibility that she could hear him years before.”  
“Tommy always said he thought she could or she had some weird witch abilities. To be fair it could have been either,” Felicity jested.

“I don't know for sure and there is no way to be certain but I think it's a fair bet to say she overheard Tommy and I that night,” Oliver lamented. “I never told him about the time I kissed you.”  
Felicity gave a small nod. “Ergo the one kiss comment in the letter.”  
“I can't believe I missed that,” Oliver grumbled.  
Felicity lay her hand on top of his, it's size paling in comparison to his massive hand span. “I, I would have never been that cruel Oliver, but she set us up pretty good.”  
“If it wasn't for the signature,” bemoaned Oliver.  
Felicity blew across the top of her drink creating a few decadently brown ripples.  
“I had a thought about that,” she started as her sapphire eyes blinked long ebony lashes at him. “The last day of school, the locker dump.”  
The realisation started slowly on Oliver's face until his eyes were wide and his jaw clenched. “Of course.”  
“I don't suppose you had anything in your locker that I had sent you with my name on it?” She asked rhetorically, the answer was plain on his face.  
“I would have I'm sure.” He ran a troubled hand through his hair. “I should have known you wouldn't,” his words broke off, brittle and angry.

“It seems she knew both of our insecurities better than we knew them ourselves. Me thinking you broke my trust,” started Felicity. He touched her trembling hand and swore to himself that he'd never let it go far away from him again. “And you with me not believing in you.”  
“My perfect little good luck charm,” Oliver added.  
“What?” she piqued with a curious smile.  
“That's what I used to call you,” he admitted as a blush coloured his cheeks underneath the scruff of his beard.

She leaned over the table and planted a flirty and fleeting kiss on his lips, which, even after the night before, left Oliver's mouth gaping and rendered him utterly speechless as she stood up and excused herself from the table.  
“I'm going to use the bathroom, be back soon.”  
He watched her leave, knowing she swayed her hips just that little bit more felinely for his benefit before he sat back in his chair and exhaled like the world was fucking perfect at that moment.

Which, for Oliver, it was.

Then her phone rung.  
He looked towards the bathroom door but there was no movement. He looked back to her phone which was vibrating wildly across the table.

 _Harvey Spick_ showed on the display.  
_Maybe... He should..._  
Before he'd really thought it through, Oliver answered her phone. “Felicity Smoak's phone.”  
“Where is she?” Came the abrupt answer from the other end of the call.  
“She's indisposed at the moment, can I take a message?”  
“And who are you?”  
“A friend,” Oliver bit back sharply, “and who are you?”  
“Her boss. Her very pissed off boss.”  
Oliver's shoulders relaxed a little, at least it wasn't some boyfriend she'd neglected to tell him. Although, Oliver supposed he'd simply best the fool who was undoubtedly not good enough for her like some romantic comedy.  
“She's supposed to be in Starling, where the fuck is she?”  
Oliver felt a sudden burst of anger that he probably should have tried harder to contain. “Do you speak to her like that?”  
Silence.  
“She is trying her hardest to get there but there is no way in or out at the moment.”  
He heard a long, agitated sigh. “She better be there on the 27th or she doesn't need to bother coming back to work.”  
Before Oliver could say anything further he was met with the disconnected tone.

He felt hot under the collar imaging that anyone thought they could talk to Felicity like that and midway through him muttering, “that son of a bitch needs to watch his mouth,” Felicity slid back into her seat.

“Everything okay?” she enquired.  
“Your boss rung.”  
He slid her phone across the table to her. Judging by the look on his face, Oliver had had the pleasure of talking to him. “Let me guess, ‘why aren't I in Starling yet, if I don't get there, I'll be fired’.”  
“Something like that,” Oliver huffed.  
“So nothing new then?” she said, her shoulders shrugging.  
“Why do you let him talk to you like that?”  
“He's my boss.”  
“He's a jerk.”  
“No argument here,” she sucked back her drink, relishing the silky chocolate as it warmed her throat.  
Oliver was near furious, even if Felicity wasnt. “You shouldn't put up with that.”  
She looked up over the rim of her mug as she shrugged. “I know, but I need this job, no one will give me a few mil to pose in my underwear for a billboard,” she teased.  
“I would,” Oliver immediately replied.

“That's nepotism,” she said with a wink. “But I appreciate it all the same.”  
“I just think you deserve better.”  
She held his hand across the table, long, broad fingers woven between her slender, red tipped ones.

“Well isn't that a sight,” a soft voice cooed from the side of the table.  
When Felicity and Oliver looked up they found the twins smiling down at them.  
“I'm not surprised? Haven Brook Falls is a magical place after all. Has anyone told you two how this place got its name?” Maggie said, a delighted smile brightly colouring her expression.

Both Oliver and Felicity shook their heads in unison.  
Maggie seemed even more delighted that they hadn’t. “They say two wagon trains heading in opposite directions camped here when inclement weather stopped them from moving on for a few days, not far from here,” she started.  
“Up near the falls,” Margo added to her twin’s recount.  
“A young lady by the name of Edith Mahon, a real fancy type was heading for Illinois while a puckish dark-skinned cowboy by the name of Jacob Brooks was travelling east as a wagon scout with another party to settle in Oregon.”

Margo took up the story where her twin sister left off. “It wasn't proper for the one to speak to the other so they kept their distance, because you see, young Edith was to be married to a man in Illinois, a real stuffy type more than double her age. She had no interest in a man like that and wanted a much more adventurous life. So, quite the rebellious young woman, she packed a case, hiked to the falls and scattered her clothes around with some pig’s blood she bought from someone in the train.” She took a breath, as if to heighten the tension before she continued. “Young Edith set about making it look like she'd been killed by bears and her body had either been eaten or gone over the falls. She then hid herself in Mr Brooks' wagon, hoping to get passage at least a little ways before she was discovered.”

The twins looked at each other and shook their heads sombrely. “Unfortunately someone had seen her around Mr Brooks’ wagon before she hiked up to the falls and the richer folk decided he must have brought harm to dear Miss Edith.”

Maggie continued the story. “She heard the commotion from her hiding spot and feared for the poor man's life in her name. She came out from his wagon, quite well and, to the surprise of everyone there, she admitted she had set the whole thing up and Mr Brooks had done nothing wrong, he simply had a wagon he didn't sleep in.”

Felicity, glued to both the story and the narrative the twins seemed to give it, absently squeezed Oliver's hand.

“She pleaded with her folks to not force her to marry the man in Illinois but they wouldn't listen to her. It was young Jacob who saw the look in the young woman's eyes and even though her actions had very nearly caused his person to come to harm, he announced,” Maggie narrated.  
“In front of both camps,” Margo chimed in.  
Maggie nodded. “In front of _everyone_ , that he and Miss Edith had fallen in love and gotten married the night before and she ought stay with him seeing as she was now his wife.”

Margo picked up the story from there. “As you can well imagine both camps were wide eyed and slacked jawed, but not nearly as much as the pretty little Miss Edith. They say he winked at her and she took his hand,” she looked down at Felicity and Oliver holding hands, “and she swore it to be true. Another cowboy said an oath that he had married them and when her parents threatened to get the marriage dissolved, Miss Edith announced, quite crassly for that era you know, that they had consummated the wedding various times and positions all through the night and she was probably carrying his child at that very moment.”

Maggie and Margo chuckled identically. “Disgusted, her parents left and she never heard from them again. Mr Jacob offered young Edith safe passage to Oregon and half of all the money he had to his name.”

“By the time they reached Oregon, she'd earned much more; she had his heart and he had hers. They returned to Haven Brook the next chance they got and were married at the top of the falls, for real that time and they settled here. Struck gold not far from where you folks are staying and the town was founded shortly after.” Maggie finished the story with a knowing smile.

“If you two get the time you should head into the falls, they say that both Edith and Jacob can rest there, looking for other lovers,” Margo cooed.  
“You don't say.” Oliver remarked.  
Margo crossed her heart. “They say if it's true love Jacob and Edith shake the pine trees nearby and the couple will be littered with pine needles.”

**》》《《**

Curiosity got the better of them and a short trek later they were standing in a clearing at the top of the magical falls.  
“I can see why they would get married here,” Felicity remarked as she crunched snow underfoot while she turned on the spot.

Stunning was an understatement. The area was surrounded by evergreen pines. The stream that fed the waterfall ran through the middle of the clearing and was dusted in frazil ice, which appeared like a cluster of needles on the surface of the water, a by-product of the freezing temperature from the night before. Science class had taught Felicity that if provided that the temperature stayed at that level for a long enough time, frazil ice would then form an anchor at the spot where the water drops from the rocks and would begin to grow downwards, creating a column as tall as the height from which the water falls. After enough time passed, the entire waterfall would appear to have been frozen, making for a picturesque, but extremely surreal sight.

She had seen something similar at Niagara Falls a few years ago. Although not enough to halt the flow completely, it had been quite the sight to behold. But for now the stream still maintained enough of a flow to feed the waterfall and the sound of it splashing to the pool below echoed through the valley.

There was a bench not far from the edge of the waterfall that had the simple inscription, _**Edith and Jacob**_. A plaque nearby listed their full names and dates of births and what Felicity assumed were their dates of death some 80 odd years later and only 2 days apart.

Oliver kissed Felicity near the edge of the waterfall, it was slow and passionate. His fingers combed into her hair, his gloved-palms cupping her cheeks. And Felicity kissed him back, lingered and amorous, with her body pressed so close to her that not even the gentle wind could pass between them.

Then, while their lips stayed crushed against each other, sharing the same warm air and circling their tongues, a sudden breeze rattled the trees and the two were soon covered in fallen pine needles.

“Do you think Margo and Maggie are hiding in the trees to shake them?” Felicity laughed as she brushed Oliver's shoulders.  
Oliver leaned in and plucked a rogue needle from Felicity's hair. “I wouldn't put it past them.”

They stood a few moments longer, in quiet serenity and watched the sun dip lower in the sky before Oliver, with his hand around Felicity's waist, spoke up. “The sign for the B&B not far from here said there was a vacancy. What’s say we check out if the Motel 6 and check in there?”  
She rested her head against his arm and marvelled at the brilliant pinks that coloured the sky ahead of them. “It doesn't look like we'll be getting out of here anytime soon,” she admitted. The news was still somewhat negative on when flight travel in the area would return to normal and, short of hiring a snow plough to drive them out of town, there wasn't much to be done about the situation.

She lifted her head off his shoulder before she kissed the cusp over his jacket. “Let's put that underwear money to good use then.”  
He laughed and cringed. “You're never going to let me live that down are you?”  
“I stared at your giant crouch for like 2 months,” she remarked as she pulled him back towards the path out. “So no.”

As they walked Oliver didn't notice his phone was ringing in his pocket.

John sighed when he got voicemail but he left a message all the same.

 _Beep_.  
“Oliver, I got you a way out. You need to be ready to leave first thing in the morning. It's a little crazy but I did it. A tractor ride. A helicopter jaunt. A private plane. A second chopper ride and a town car. Call me back asap,” he stopped, racking his brain because he knew there was something else. “Oh and the ball is on route.”  
_End of recorded message._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I feel a little bit in love with the story of Jacob and Edith and I basically have an entire head canon about it... so that happened. Feel free to ask about them lol lol


	9. You make a choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonus smut the movie adaption will probably cut.

The Bed & Breakfast suite was _nothing_ like the Motel 6 room, in fact it's luxuriant ivory wallpaper, embossed with a sweeping floral pattern, and it's deep-burgundy soft furnishings would rival even some of the fanciest hotels Oliver had ever stayed in. Like everyone else in this idyllic town, the owners, Marty and Betty, were darling people with honest smiles and a warm welcome.

They already knew Oliver, his presence in the town had well and truly made the rounds and he offered them a few autographs for their trouble and they, in turn, offered Oliver the guest suit. It wasn't part of the main house and was set back down a little cobble path that Marty had dutifully swept while Betty gave Felicity and Oliver a tour across the town map that hung over the crackling fireplace.

There was a church nearly 170 years old a stone's throw away from the edge of the B&B gate and built by none other than Jacob Brooks. There were no services held there anymore, but Betty was quick to point out that they held weddings there, and that there wasn't much left there to make it a church as such anymore, so it wouldn't matter a person’s religious denomination.

Felicity simply smiled.

It was also fairly apparent that every woman in the town believed in the pine needles, and the urban legend that dictated being sprinkled with them by the falls was a ghostly seal of approval for true love. So, when Betty noticed a few stuck into the fabric of Oliver's coat and he remarked that they had been to the top of the waterfall, she couldn't contain the look of giddy in her sweetly-weathered eyes.

By the time Marty came back and said the room was ready, Betty was practically swooning at the couple.

“If you folks need anything there is an intercom by the door so just give us a bell,” said Marty, a fit man despite his retirement age, as he stood in the doorway while Oliver sat their bags down inside the room. “I've set the fire and there should be plenty of logs in the basket to keep you going all night,” he continued as he nodded towards the potbelly stove with orange flames peeking up behind the gated, wrought iron door.

Him and Betty stayed just inside the door. “Towels are in the bathroom and the instructions for the bath are under the cabinet,” he remarked.  
Felicity nodded as she listened.

Betty tapped her husband's shoulder and an audible sigh left his lips. “The lights are on a dimmer so you can,” he clenched his jaw a little as though the next words he was about to say weren't his, “set the mood, or whatever,” he added offhandedly.

“What’s the check out time?” Felicity enquired, her analytical brain taking over.  
“Oh you two can stay however long you want,” Betty gushed. Like Marty, she appeared in her late 70s but in sprite she seemed barely a day over 35.  
Marty looked at Betty with a slight tension in his jaw; but when push came to shove, he wasn't game enough to fight his wife on her reply.  
“You really have a beautiful place here,” Felicity remarked as she glanced out towards the view, one that overlooked the town below.

“It's a beautiful town,” Betty breathed, her voice so soft and sure of every word she spoke. “Here people often find something they didn't even know they were looking for, or something they thought they lost.” With another smile the couple disappeared, closing the door behind them.

“I think that was meant for us,” Felicity chortled under a low whisper as she tiptoed over to Oliver.  
“Look,” he admitted raising his hands in an act of surrender, “I tuned out after he said the bathtub had instructions.”  
They stared at each other wordless and motionless until Felicity slid one foot slowly towards the bathroom. Oliver mimicked the move and then took another step closer.

Their lips furrowed and Oliver met Felicity's arched brow with a brief double eyebrow raise of his own before she smacked his arm with the back of her hand and made a break towards the bathroom.

He grabbed her around the waist and easily lifted her up until her feet with treading nothing but air.  
“No fair, she squealed, as she squirmed and fought to open his hands. She hadn't been a match for him 15 years ago, and she definitely wasn't now either.  
“Are we fighting for the fancy bathtub?” Oliver hummed as he set her feet back on the ground but kept his arms banded around her waist.  
“Just like the hotel in South Carolina at the world series,” she replied with a slow bob of her head. Only his room had the fancy bathtub and she had won it in a game of rock, paper, scissors fair and square.  
“I remember,” Oliver smiled against the threads of her neck, his breath like a warm mist that teased her senses and made her cushiony walls crush together and ache with need. “Only back then we didn't have a third option.”  
Her head lolled to one side, swanning her neck to Oliver's gentle kisses. “Which is?”  
His coiled arms loosened as his lips worked towards her ear. “We can _share_ the tub this time.”

She turned in his arms, her chest pressed hard against his, and her body lifted onto her tiptoes.

“Would you have shared with me then too Oliver?” she asked coyly, her nude and glossed lips staying parted in an _O_ shape.  
A husky sigh bled from his mouth, just thinking about it had his cock twitching. “Would you have let me?”  
She gently pushed her finger into his dimple, twisted it playfully and smiled.  
“I guess we'll never know,” she pecked the tip of his nose with her soft lips before she slipped free from his arms.

“Fancy bath aside though, maybe we could get something for dinner,” she patted her stomach, “Johnny’s pizza for old time's sake?”  
Oliver laced his fingers at the nape of his neck and pushed his elbows back as he hummed loudly. “About that.”  
“What?” She cocked her head to one shoulder and her hand instinctively moved to her hip.  
“They don't actually sell pizza there.” Her eyebrows wrinkled and her lips pursed cutely. “You wanted pizza so I paid some kid a couple of hundred to go get it and deliver it and pretend it came from the kitchen.”

“You,” she wiggled her finger towards him but she actually had nothing more to say.  
“I'm pretty sure I could get it delivered here too,” he offered with his palms pressed together and pointed at her. “Your choice of topping.”

“Are you using my love of pizza, because you know how I get?” she quipped, still wriggling her finger playfully at him.  
“Oh I fully intend to take advantage of your need to get comfortable after you eat pizza.” He walked closer until her finger was digging into his brawny chest. “I have every intention of hiding both of our suitcases.”

“Oliverrr,” she purred his name and it sent a thousand volt shiver down his spine and caused a breathy sigh to escape his lips. “How do you feel about oral sex?” she questioned as her fingers deftly moved down the zipper of his pants, having them opened and around his knees before he even realised it.

“For,” he groaned as her palm stroked the understand of his semi. “Definitely for.”  
Her tongue swiped back and forth across her lips, glossing them.  
“Good,” she smacked her lips together like a famished animal as she tucked both her hands down his boxer briefs. “I was hoping you'd say that.”

She dragged his underwear slowly down his legs, her nails leaving superficial grazes on the inside of his legs, while she crouched down, until his cock was free and tingling at the air brushing like a feather across the tip. With her legs bowed and her eyes looking up his body, Felicity gently coaxed his cock with two fingers skimming a woven path down the underside of his shaft.

“Standing or sitting?” she asked, speaking the words so close to his aching tip that he felt her warm breath misting on his slit.

There was a pocket of air in Oliver's throat and when he went to speak his voice came out like a thin and shaky _humph_.  
“Ladies choice then?” she quipped.  
He nodded, if it was anyone other than Felicity he would have been embarrassed at the way he couldn't make coherent words with her that close to his throbbing, naked cock. But, he was also fairly certain she was the only one that could actually render him virtually mute.

She furrowed her lips before she stood back up, dragging her nails deliciously slow up his thighs, a sensation that caused Oliver to suck in air. With her palm flat to the base of his cock she curled her fingers around his shaft and tugged gently, using his erect rod like a lead. She led him with a swaying hip to a wall just along from the bed and pushed him against the wall, position between the bedside table and a small cafe table with two French chic chairs.

“Where, here?” he asked with a husky voice.  
With a grin turning up her mouth Felicity pointed upwards. Oliver looked to where she was pointing, to find a sprig of mistletoe hung from the ceiling on a red, satin ribbon.

“You don't sa-,”  
She stopped his words short when her palm gently rode over the thrumming head of his cock and down the shaft to the base where she lifted off her hand and repeated the same action, keeping a steady pace and never once going up and down, a tease that had Oliver's knees soon buckling as he braced his wide shoulders against the wall.

With her free hand she lifted the tails of his red and black flannel shirt. Oliver looked down, and the sight of her hand caressing his veiny cock made him whimper out a breathy moan. He needed her, every part of his body craved her touch; his lips longed to be pressed to the soft, round peak of her lips. His fingertips throbbed with desire to skim the sleek curves of her body. His eyes wanted to devour her. His nose wanted to memorize every note of her scent. His cock; well it was no surprise what that appendage wanted to do. But, most of all his heart, it wanted to be hers completely. He wanted to spend every minute with her, he wanted to rediscover what made her laugh, whether she still cried in sad movies. Watch her braid her hair and paint her nails. Oliver wanted to remember, relive and relish everything he once knew about her, and everything that he still had to learn.

“Open your shirt please,” she instructed as she maintained the rhythm, tip to base, and her other hand drew the softest circles on the inside of his thighs making Oliver twitch involuntarily. It was something of an aphrodisiac how Oliver's body responded to even the slightest of her touches.

He did just as she asked and his clothes soon made a puddle of red and white flannel and wool at his feet.

“Thank you.” The word you popped from her lips with a salacious sound that drove Oliver nearly wild and had him gripping the pads of his fingers into the embossed wallpaper behind him.

She hopped kisses across Oliver's chest, from pec to pec and down to one nipple, which she glided small circles around with the tip of her tongue before she nipped it carefully with her teeth. Oliver's head tapped back onto the wall as his eyes rolled up towards the ceiling.

“Do you like that Oliver?” Smoky, sultry words that make his thighs quiver.  
He tugged his eyes down to her. “I like,” he puffed, “it.”  
She smiled, as she carefully noted his reaction. “Good.”  
She moved lower down to his stomach, rubbing her tongue through the trenches that separated his lines of muscles. She felt his breath quicken and his skin prickle around her lips. His body sung to her and there was something _fucking_ fantastic about that.

Her hands had done much of the work and, by the time her lips kissed the head of Oliver's cock, he was already insanely close to climax; the line of perspiration across his brow and his ragged breathing told her that.

She took the tip first, circling it with her tongue before she curled her lips around her teeth and slid his salty head an inch into the warm and wet confines of her mouth.

The backs of his thighs jerked and tightened as her mouth gently sucked him in, fraction by fraction. She peeled one of his hands from the wall and placed his palm against her cheek with his fingers splayed into her soft locks. With her eyes anchored to his she pushed the head of his cock to one side of her mouth; and he felt it poke into her cheek.

“Fuck,” he breathed, and she winked.  
She took him a little deeper before she created a circle with her thumb and forefinger and settled it in close to her lips.

Her cheeks hollowed and Oliver's palm sunk with them as she let his salty taste settle on her taste buds while she licked her tongue through his leaking slit.

Once she was comfortable with his length, Felicity tipped her head ever so slightly so his cock would graze against the silky and pliable inside of her cheek and the hard surface of Oliver's hand laying over the top.

As she slid her mouth and hand up and down Oliver's throbbing cock, her other hand moved with a feather-light touch to his aching balls. A slight tickle with just the tips of two fingers had his entire body shaking and a playful tug had him sobbing out her name in stunted syllables, “Fuh. Lis. Ity.”

She never quickened her pace, but his breathing sped up, and soon his chest was heaving and his hand shaking against her damp cheek. Her mouth was so full of him and the teasing her fingers lavished on every other connecting part had Oliver practically panting as he careened towards climax.

Her thumb soon found his perineum and with one finger gently skimming his puckered hole, Felicity gently applied pressure to the thin spread of skin that was littered with nerve endings. Her touch felt like a rocket exploding in Oliver's torso.

“I'm going to,” he shakily said as his eyes flung open. Every inch of his body was glazed in sweat and the shooting flares of pleasure up the back of Oliver's legs warned him what was coming, _Him_.

“Coming Felicity,” he practically shouted and the throaty laugh she made in response sent an delirium of shockwaves down his cock.  
Her eyes told him she knew, and it was okay. He came seconds later in long ribbons that coated her mouth and she swallowed down with barely a blink.

With her hand still massaging his undercarriage she felt every spasm and every jerk and eventually his cock began to soften in her mouth, fully spent. She dropped him with a pop of air from her lips and caught his cock in her palm before she tenderly kissed the rim of his head and stood up.

“Merry Christmas,” she grinned, using her thumb to collect remnants of his spend from the corners of her lips.  
“Happy Hanukah,” he answered, rasped and breathless.

**》》《《**

“This should be weird,” Felicity reflected as she lay on her back on the floor in a position that would be quite strange to most; anyone that wasn't the two of them.

They were a jigsaw of body parts. Both fully clothed. Oliver was sitting on the floor also, with his back leaned up against the double-height bed with a cushion crumpled in the small of his back. His legs were extended out in front of his body in a v-shape which had his ankles sitting, more or less, in the frame of his shoulders. He had a slice of pizza in one hand and a half finished Budweiser in the other, with lipstick stains on the edge.

Felicity was lying across the floor near his feet with her head propped up on a pillow that sat on one of Oliver's ankles, while his other leg rested, slightly bent, over Felicity's lap. A box of crusts and two uneaten slices sat between them and Felicity was idly playing with the blonde hairs on Oliver's legs.

It was a scene ripped from their history, one that Tommy had mistakenly walked in on, and after seeing them sitting like that in Oliver's den, he promptly turned around and left again, stating afterwards that they were 'too weird'.

It wasn't sexual, at least they had never intended it to be and it didn't feel sexual in its recreation now, despite the very sexual positions they found themselves in only an hour before. This was different, this was a slip back into a familiarity that had once been second nature to them, a comfortable place that had been missing in both of their lives for so long.

“Which part?” Oliver queried as he put the beer into her hand when she extended her arm towards him.  
She took a sip and handed it back to him. “That we're _us_ and we're sitting here eating pizza like we used to, only,” she rolled her head to look at him, a loose braid she'd been working on dropping against his leg, “we just had sex, very sensual, very sexual, very wild sex.”

He smirked, “thank you for the descriptive words firstly.” He took a swig of the beer. “Secondly, does it feel weird?”  
She shook her head as her fingers trickled down his leg.  
“Then that's why it doesn't,” he simpered.  
He handed her the drink and she took it. “Then that's why it doesn't,” she repeated.

She leaned over and took a nibble from a crust she'd already discarded once. “Why Total Eclipse of the Heart? It's about...”  
“Vampires, I know,” Oliver finished with a sly grin.  
She was genuinely surprised. “You know that?”  
“I remember you telling me,” he answered with a wink before he took a bite of pizza. “I just figured singing ‘Hungry Eyes’ might give away a little too much.”  
“I'm not familiar with that one,” she lied as she dropped the crust back into the box and loosened the tie on the sweat shorts Oliver had given her. “You might need to sing a few lines for me.”  
“No, nope, nah-uh Smoak, you only get one Karaoke rendition a year,” bantered Oliver.  
She pouted but he wasn't budging. “Next year then,” she chirped.  
“Next year,” he added softly. The idea of it making him smile.

“Hey,” Oliver shunted his leg on her, poking his toe into her side. When she looked at him, wide eyed and curious, he continued, “we should send a picture to Tommy.”  
“Oh really?” Felicity snorted. A sound she hadn't made in a decade and he hadn't heard in even longer.  
“Yeah,” Oliver chortled as he fished his phone out of the pocket of his nearby jacket. “He'll hate it.”

He looked down at his phone to unlock it; thirteen missed calls, all from John.  
“Shit,” Oliver muttered.  
Felicity sat up on her elbows. “Everything okay?”  
“I've missed like a dozen phone calls from my manager,” Oliver grimaced as he started to stand up.  
Felicity sat up to free his trapped leg and blinked up at him. “You don't think that whole joke about you paying for me for the night got back to him do you?” she asked, worry fretting with her brow as she stapled her hands to her arm pits. “I'm really sorry.”

Oliver kissed her head as he walked past. “I'm almost certain that's not it, let me call him back real quick.”  
Felicity stood up and wiped her slightly greasy hands on a scrunched up napkin. “You take the room, I'll go start the fancy bath.” She lifted her body onto her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Just come in when you're done.”

She strolled towards the bathroom but stopped at the door to turn around, a coquettish smile woven across her lips, bounding through the fullness of her cheeks and into the flecks of sea-blue in her eyes. “Leave your clothes out here,” she cooed before she slipped into the bathroom and closed the door.

Oliver waited for the sound of running water before he made the call.  
John answered with a grunt and Oliver knew he was in trouble. “You were looking for me?” He asked with a crinkled lip.  
“What gave it away? The dozen missed calls or the two dozen text messages I sent you?”  
Oliver's shoulders swallowed his neck; he hadn't even seen those. “Sorry, I was uh,” he looked across to the wall where Felicity had given him head and down at the floor where they had made out like horny teenagers, “preoccupied.”  
“Mmmhmmmm,” John droned. “Thank you for that Christmas bonus you gave me, I'm sure it'll make up for it.”  
“I didn't-,” Oliver stopped and smiled. “Absolutely, you're quite welcome I hope you enjoy it.”  
John laughed like a belly ache down the phone. “Good man, good man,” he echoed, still laughing. “Now to the reason I’ve been trying all day to talk to you,” John started and Oliver could imagine the bulky man's dark mocha skin getting a row of serious-thought lines across his brow as his deep brown eyes starred him down. He was the best damn manager Oliver could have hoped for, but he'd be remiss to stay he wasn't a little scared of the man.

“I got you a way of out of Haven Falls Hill,” John announced, chuffed.  
“Haven Brook Falls,” Oliver corrected.  
“That's what I said.” Both men chuckled lightly. “Anyway, it wasn't easy. It involves a lot of hopscotching around the upper half of the country but it'll get you in Starling late tomorrow night, couple of hours sleep and you'll wow the powers that be for that sponsorship deal.”  
“You actually did it you son of a bitch,” Oliver gaped.  
“I know you aren't talking about my mother Oliver.”  
“You should send her a present from me too,” Oliver hastily added before they both started laughing again.  
“This girl must really be something, huh,” John commented and Oliver could imagine his friend stroking his jaw in reflection as he said it.

“She's pretty special,” Oliver effused, his happiness written like indelible ink on his face. “She'll be happy to be leaving too, thanks man, I'll let her know just tell me where you need us to be.”  
“Oooh,” John's voice dropped an octave. “Man I'm sorry, this is a one person thing. I didn't know...”  
“Surely they can squeeze another person in though?”  
“The first leg is a helicopter flight, the only guy I could find who would fly out there and across state was an ex military guy and the chopper he has, only seats 2 so unless she knows how to fly a Konner K1.” Oliver might have been out of her life for a decade but he doubt that very much. “But hey they say they should start clearing some of the backlog late tomorrow so she should only be stuck there another day tops, less if she can get to a hub city like Lincoln. They'll put on flights to clear the stranded and she'll be out of there in no time.”

Oliver looked at the closed door, squinting at the grain pattern in the varnished wood. “She doesn't have a ticket,” he lamented softly.  
“How did she...,” John gave up on the rest of the question for another time. “Look I'm sure she'll be able to get a seat if she's on standby, it might take a little longer, maybe an extra day. When the airports are reopened maybe I can call in a few favours, see what we can do. She should be in Starling by Friday.”

The 28th.  
Her meeting was on the 27th.

“There isn't some miracle you can pull out if I double that Christmas present I got you?” Oliver pleaded his chin to his chest and his eyes screwed shut.  
“Sorry,” and he truly sounded like it. “We'll sort something out but tomorrow it's just you Oliver. You need to be at that meeting. You worked for that.”

Oliver glanced over to the table where Felicity's folder of important documents 'and shit' sat. _So had she._

“Alright, thanks man. Text me the details and I'll make sure it happens.”  
“Merry Christmas Oliver.”  
“Thanks man. Give Sara and John Jnr a hug from me and say hi to Lyla.”  
“Will do,” John promised. “Thanks for the gifts, they loved them.”  
“You means the ones I actually did buy?” Oliver laughed, “they're welcome.”  
“Am I going to get to meet this one?” John asked, his pitch lifting and Oliver imagined his friend smiling down the phone.  
“Absolutely. She's the one,” Oliver answered. Undisputed, no reservation.  
“Look at your phone,” John reminded. “Tomorrow. 9am.”  
“Noted.”

The two hung up after their goodbyes and Oliver dropped his head into his hands, before he dragged his fingers over his scalp. Thoughts somersaulted and rebounded through his brain like a trampoline park before he stood up, took a steadying breath and headed for the bathroom; still not sure what he'd say when he got there.

He opened the door to the heavenly aroma of honey and vanilla-scented milk and he found Felicity soaking in the tub made for two with bubbles surrounding her and keeping just enough of her behind their sudsy mounds to make it akin to a treasure hunt to discover her.

Her skin was dewy and glistened in the low, amber hue of the light above them and the wisps of small candle lights dotted the edge of the vanity. Her hair was piled high on her head with sodden tendrils framing her face.

“You're still wearing clothes,” she pouted when she looked at him.  
“Sorry, I forgot,” he apologised with a tip of his head as he started undoing shirt buttons. “Your meeting on the 27th it's important yes?”  
She sighed and a tuft of white, cloudy bubbles blew back from her, exposing a slither of her breast. “Pretty important,” she answered, a soft realisation dipping her tone in sadness. “But it doesn't look like I'll make it back.” She looked up and gave Oliver a tipped smile. “And you'll miss your meeting too.”

His smile was small but genuine as he brushed off her concern with a flick of his wrist. “Mines not really all that important,” he sought to assure her.  
“We won't both be fired then?” she chuckled; _because honestly what else could she do?_ “Just me.”  
“You like your job?”  
Her lips crinkled with the question as did her brow. “I worked hard for it,” she half-answered. “And I was hoping more of moving on over getting terminated. But,” she sunk a little lower into the bath, dropping her breasts below water level, “this bath is making everything seem a lot less sucky, so get naked and join me.”

He dropped his shirt and laughed. “In a minute. First I have a surprise for you.”  
She slid up the porcelain tub, the top mounds of her breasts emerging from the water like little soapy islands.  
“We have to get up early tomorrow,” Oliver started.  
She sunk a fraction lower and lolled her eyes upwards. “I'm not going on a hike with you Oliver, I'm not much fitter than I was 12 years ago.”  
“Not that, I promise.” He moved closer to the edge of the Jacuzzi bath and sliced a finger through a bubble, his fingertip grazing her arm hidden beneath the airy foam. “There is a flight out of here.”

She sat up completely and her breasts broke through the surface of the water like perfect, palm-sized cannon balls. “How, what, How? Really?” she shrieked.  
He leaned over and kissed her damp forehead. “Really, it's all sorted. It's not exactly mainstream but it'll land in Starling tomorrow evening.”  
“We're both going? Are you sure this is real?”  
“It's real baby.”  
“I could just,” she laced her hands at the back of his neck and tugged him down, “kiss you,” she announced before her lips catapulted onto his.

It caught Oliver off guard, and off balance, and seconds later he had fallen into the bath with a splash, a Tsunami of water, _and_ his pants still on.

Felicity was so happy she never noticed the slight tremble in that little dimple of his.


	10. You say the words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The penultimate chapter of this story guys 😭

****

**26 December**

He couldn't take her lips off her neck...even if he wanted to. But the fact was Oliver had absolutely _no_ desire to leave her be while she brushed back her hair and put of a few swipes of gloss across her lips; and her neck was like a feeding ground for his mouth.

She had an effervescent laugh as she swatted him away with a mascara wand. “Oliver, please,” she pleaded, meeting his gaze in the mirror.  
He growled, quite animalistic, at the tip of her jaw, just below her ear. “Say it again.”

She watched his eyes in the mirror, they were rife with mischief and coloured with flecks of excitement. “And then you'll let me get ready?” Felicity asked as her eyes trekked up to the messy humps in her hair that she needed to fix; _no thanks to him._  
“I promise.” He nipped the last word into a thread of her neck and she melted against his chest, her body reacting almost instantly to his advances. The tops of her thighs felt damp, the fabric of her bra chaffed her hardening nipples and her knees felt like jelly as she relied on the arm Oliver banded around her waist to hold her up.

She'd had more sex in the last 48, _or so_ , hours than she'd had in last ten... _er_ , fifteen months, and even then she wasn't used to sex being quite so...so... _involved_. No one else had even come close to making Felicity buckle at the knees quite like Oliver had, or pulled the frenetic noises his touches seemed to be able to demand from her throat.

It wasn't that sex hadn't been enjoyable before, per se, but being with him was beyond enjoyable, it was mind-altering, it was all-consuming, it was... _living in a powder keg and letting off sparks;_ she smiled to herself at the reference before she felt Oliver's fingers dipping under her soft terry-towelling bath robe.

Her palms flattened against the smooth marble vanity as she bowed, instinctively, at the waist, her ass rising up against his washboard chest.  
“Say it,” he whispered as a waterfall of prickles cascaded down her spine. His voice was husky and enchanting and the swirl of his breath against her neck, just as his fingers reached the edge of her panties, made Felicity shudder against the edge of the vanity.

She looked up and caught his stare reflected in the mirror. Her eyes were darkened with shadowy need and her lip was swollen from the gnawing of her teeth.  
“I love you,” she panted just as his finger sliced through her pulsing, wet sex.  
“Say it,” he echoed his earlier instructions as he circled her nether lips making Felicity shake and her fingers curl into her hand.  
“Fine,” she rasped and he smiled, easing a fingertip into her pulsing entrance. “You beat me at scrabble.”

He dropped his lips back to her sweltering neck and kissed three soft and lingered kisses there. “And,” he dipped his finger in a little deeper and her body reacted to him in silent, desperate sobs.  
“Fair and square,” she quivered and Oliver's fingers dropped away.

He had bested her in a game of scrabble the night before and Felicity had playfully told him she had let him; at least until his fingers had teased the truth out of her, much like he had in the bathroom just then.

He skimmed her silken thighs, now a little damper, as he dragged his fingers back down her leg. “There, as promised, I'll leave you alone.” He stepped back, still holding her stare in the mirror as he brought his glistening fingers up to his mouth and gently licked them clean.

She whipped around, her chest pounding with ragged breaths while her fingers gripped the edge of the cool, smooth vanity. Her pulse was quickened and her skin was wet with misted perspiration.  
“Unless,” Oliver spoke, stepping towards her again, the pads of his fingers tickling the knot in her robe. “You want me to keep going?”  
She meant to say yes, she had every intention of saying yes, but her body was so overcome with urgent need that all she could manage was a rasped moan and a sudden, near violent, nod of her head.

Oliver hoisted her at the waist and let her down gently on the vanity. The cool, unpliable slab of marble was like a cold slap to her thighs, but it brought her only pleasure.

He touched her chin with his knuckle and raised her eyes to meet his. With a gentle kiss on the tip of her nose, his hands unknotted her robe and his thumbs snuck under the soft, plushy fabric.

“Finger or tongue?” he asked as a trickle of fingers glided down her chest.  
She looked at him, riveted and wanton, before a smile lifted one side of her full, wet lips.  
“Both.”

He kissed her deeply and passionately, fingers entwined in hair and tongue lashing together until they broke apart, breathless but ready for more.  
“I was hoping you'd say that,” he replied with a wink.

**》》《《**

They were only a few minutes late to meet the tractor driver at the end of the driveway and, as Felicity took one last look around the idyllic surroundings, Oliver took the driver aside and out of earshot.

“I'm only s'posed to be taking one passenger,” he remarked, a weathered hand brushing over his woollen cap.  
“I know,” Oliver hushed as he pulled his wallet from his trousers. “I need you to take both of us, wait around and then bring me back to town. Whatever price you were offered I'll pay double.”  
The man looked at the bags Oliver had loaded onto the trailer before he looked back at him. “I reckon I could do that. Mr Diggle paid me $500 to make the trip.”  
“Then your fare will be $1000. Fair?” Oliver stuck out his hand and the farmer shook it.  
“Fair.”

**》》《《**

The ride was a little bumpy and the air was still frigid as it slapped against Felicity's cheeks, even as she snuggled into Oliver's broad chest. But she didn't mind it, the sobering chill of it made her feel alive and the thump of his heartbeat made her feel safe.

It was true that they couldn't claw back the passage of time; but they could make every moment from here on out, their own.  
“So was it just this meeting you were heading back to in Starling?” Oliver asked, not sure of the answer he was expecting to find but to hear her voice; a melodic tone that he'd missed for so long.  
“Mhmm,” she said to his woollen pullover. “Oh, that and my mother threatened to disown me if I didn't.”  
Oliver chuckled and Felicity lifted her head from his chest; but not her hand, that stayed there rocking up and down with every breath he took.  
“I know that feeling, I was told the same thing,” he remarked, a chuckled still in his tone. “John got the meeting I had to move to their other office so I could do both.”  
She tapped her hand over his heart. “And now you will.”

A few moments of silence lapsed between them before Felicity perked up again, _what if..._  
“You don't think it's anything more than coincidence that our mothers both threatened us with expulsion from the family if we didn't come home this year?” Felicity wondered aloud.  
Oliver brushed a heavy hand down his bristled jaw, before he smiled and laughed. “No, they couldn't...,” he stopped short of finishing that sentence because honestly he wasn't sure. But both of them laughed off the suggestion that anything other than coincidence was at play here.

The tractor slowed and when Felicity looked over the side of the trailer she made out an orange helicopter in a snow covered field.  
“A helicopter?” she squeaked as the chug of the tractor engine sputtered out.  
He kissed her icy cheek. “I told you it was a little unorthodox. Are you okay with this?”  
She put on her best brave face because tiny babies with heart problems and men with erectile dysfunction were counting on her. “Yes, it's fine. I'll be fine,” she psyched herself up before Oliver clambered out of the trailer and helped her down.

He carried both their luggage easily, it helped Felicity didn't have much more than a duffle bag, but she was fairly certain he wouldn't have had any issues holding an entire travel trunk by himself with those cannons he called arms. But when they got closer the pilot snubbed out a cigarette in the snow and looked at them, slightly confused.

The closer they traipsed through the snow to the bright orange helicopter the more it became rather apparent not only was it a helicopter, it was also a very _small_ one; and when one key piece of information came into view, Felicity stopped walking.

There were only two seats.  
_One, two,_ she counted them again in her head but the number never changed. Oliver tried to tug her a little further but she didn't budge; the gig was up.  
“Oliver, what's going on?”  
The moment the words had left her mouth the pilot, a man a little shorter than Oliver with red hair and a cherry-tinged nose made tracks up to them. “I was only expecting one,” he remarked, pulling out his phone to check.

“I know, what you were told was right,” Oliver answered and the man put his phone away. “There is only one of us going with you. Could you just give us a minute?” Oliver held out Felicity's one bag which the pilot took, nodded and walked back to the helicopter, where he put her bag into the luggage hold and set about doing a few pre-flight checks.

“Oliver, what is going on?” Felicity quizzed, her brow a frantic mess of confused wrinkles.  
He lay his hand gently on her shoulder. “You're going to Starling.”  
“Nooooo,” he couldn't help but smile at the way her perfect lips formed that word. “ _We_ are.”  
“ _We_ can't. This is the way out and it's only for one.”  
She stepped back in the snow, sinking in the foot of it. “Then you're going.”  
“You're going,” he insisted with a smile, “even if I pick you up and put you in that seat myself. You need to go to this meeting. You need to show that asshole boss who Felicity Smoak is. You need to go and be brilliant.”

She felt a flurry of warm tears building behind her eyes. “But you have the thing.”  
“That's all taken care of, you don't need to worry about it,” he promised.  
Or at least it would be; John Diggle couldn't be mad at him forever, _right_?  
“But, how will you?” she blubbered as the first tear sprung free.  
“I'm going to get a flight down to Lincoln. I have a first class ticket so it'll only be a little wait for me. _This_ is for you.” He pulled her into an embrace and kissed her forehead.

She held his head between both her hands. “August 30th 2008,” she said just as the propellers started up behind them. He looked bemused and she kissed his slightly furrowed lips.  
He knew the date. That was a date put into his memory, it was unforgettable.  
“I was there superstar.” She found her purse and went straight to the pocket with her driver's license, from underneath it she pulled a folded ticket stub. Much of the ink had worn away but it left a ghost of the words that had been there.

It was a ripped ticket from his first game.  
“I guess we both carried our past with us,” Felicity remarked as Oliver held it carefully in his hands, feeling it's slightly weathered face with his thumb. “I always believed in you superstar, I just wanted you to know that.” She lifted onto her toes and kissed his nose.

“Sorry but we need to get going,” the pilot interrupted and Oliver nodded.  
“Get on that plane, do what I know you're capable of.” He handed the ticket back and Felicity slotted it into the same spot where it had spent the last decade.

“I'll see you soon?” she asked softly.  
He kissed her cheek tenderly. “I'll see you soon.”

**》》《《**

It took John 2 hours.  
The call came while Oliver was having a cup of tea with Maggie and Margo in the coffee house while Betty tried to give him the recipe for her ‘famous scones’. Oliver looked down at the display and audibly grimaced. The three older woman with him immediately stopped talking. “It's my manager,” he sighed.

“Tell him you love her, he'll understand,” Maggie said on the second ring.  
Her twin gaped in surprise. “Not if he hasn't told _her_ yet.”  
Betty turned to Oliver as the third phone ring sounded. “He's told her, right?”  
Oliver stood up and gave them a smile. “I should take this call. I'll be right back.”

As he was walking away, Oliver heard them chattering;  
“Of course he's told her.”  
“Do you think she said it back?”  
“Of course, the pine needles never lie.”  
“That doesn't mean the two people know it's true love. They have to discover that themselves.”  
“I think they know.”

Oliver chuckled as he pushed through the door with its quaint little bell and sat on a bench outside.  
“John, Hi,” he answered, with a tone that was wholly not his; far too chirpy and almost melodic.  
“You're not on the private plane right now Oliver,” came the dry reply.  
He opened his mouth to reply but no words came out.  
“Why aren't you on the plane that I spent an entire day setting up?”  
“She needed to take it. I'm sorry.”  
He could hear John trawling a hand through his hair.

“That deal was worth millions to you Oliver,” his friend lamented.  
“And she's worth more than that,” Oliver admitted without a second thought. “I know you pulled in some massive favours and I can't thank you enough for working like you did to get me out of here, but Felicity means the world to me and I could do this for her, so I did.”  
“Well shit,” John sighed, his tone tinted with a chuckle. “You should have told me you were in love with the lady.”  
Oliver laughed softly as he looked through the window behind him, where Betty, Maggie and Margo all waved. He waved back. “I should have.”

“Only,” John started, drawing the word out in a breath. “I thought I'd surprise you so I arranged two escorts for you in the town car when you land in Starling.”  
Oliver choked on his tongue as it flung backwards into his throat when he sucked in a sudden gasp. “What the fuck? Why would you do that? Why would you think I,” Oliver stopped talking when he heard John start to laugh.  
“Yeah, that was worth it.”  
“No escorts?” cringed Oliver.  
“I wish I could have seen your face,” he snickered.  
Oliver exhaled. “Had your fun?”  
“Why would you do that?” John mocked, adopting a voice that Oliver assumed was meant to be his.  
“Yeah, Yeah, alright.”  
“Why would you think I...,” John continued to mock.  
Oliver, with a smile on his face, rolled his eyes. He wasn't going to live this down anytime soon.

**》》《《**

Felicity had never been so happy to see her luggage and if it wasn't after 10pm and she didn’t feel like an express train had tunnelled into her brain and out through her eye sockets, she might have thought about opening it and carefully hugging every item of carefully packed clothing in there.

But as it was, the only thing Felicity could think about was dropping onto her bed and sleeping for 12 hours straight.  
“So are you going to tell me about your trip? Or do I have to pry it out of you like a chestnut?” Donna Smoak asked from the doorway of Felicity's room.  
“Funny thing,” Felicity started as she plucked at the ends of her ponytail. “I actually ran into an old friend.”  
Her mother's brow lifted towards her hairline, “you did?”  
“Yeah, um,” Felicity fluffed her hand nonchalantly in the air. _Don't make a big deal. Do. Not. Make. A. Big. Deal._ “Remember um, Oliver, uh Queen.”  
“Oh sure the baseball kid from across the road?”  
“Mmhmm, him, anyway. It was, fun.”  
The second eyebrow raised on Donna's face. “So you two are talking?”  
Felicity folded her lips and half shrugged. “Yeah, I think so.”

Donna walked in just as Felicity flopped onto the edge of the bed, her legs finally giving up the will to stand a moment longer.  
“You should get some rest baby girl.” She leaned down and kissed Felicity's forehead. “For what it's worth I always liked that boy, he had nice manners and a cute smile.”  
_He still did._ “Night mom.”  
“Night sweetheart.”

When the door _clicked_ , Felicity found her phone and made a call.  
“Miss you,” Oliver answered before it got to the second ring.  
Felicity kicked off her shoes and lay down on the bed, feet propped up on her suitcase. “We just spoke like,” she craned her neck to look at the time on the clock beside the bed, “30 minutes ago.”  
“Still, I've become accustomed sleeping with you.”  
She chuckled lightly, “you mean in the same bed?”  
She could hear the grin in his answer. “Sure, that's what I meant. For warmth.”  
“For warmth,” she mimicked.  
They sighed softly at the same time. “Goodnight Oliver.”  
“Goodnight Felicity.”

When they hung up she held the phone to her chest, just listening to the sound of every breath she took.

It was ludicrous how she felt 17 again, transported back in time with a do-over card in her back pocket. To close her eyes and open them again on her bed in that red prom dress with black tears staining her porcelain cheeks. She'd run to her window and hold her breath behind the tight bodice until she saw him standing under the street lamp, a flapping piece of paper in his hands.

She would run to him, a breath caught in her throat and when she burst through the front door the sky would open into a deluge of rain, soaking her dress and creating rivers down her face, beading on her parted lips.

She'd fall towards him and Oliver would catch her, brush back her hair and see the panic in her eyes and before he would beg her to tell him what was wrong.  
_“Did you say it, did you say those things?”_ she would ask, her words coming out like sobs.

And 12 years ago they would discover what they knew now. There would be no schism. No watching him from a distance as she wished him luck. No note in his pocket. No broken hearts.

There would just be them, given a new chance.

She sighed, listless. Maybe that worked in movies. Maybe Hallmark would manage a montage of their moments until this one 12 years later. Maybe that would make a nice story to be read by a crackling fire. But that wasn't real.

The reality was they couldn't have a do over and maybe, they _shouldn't_.  
Because every decision in life created a unique path to walk and you couldn’t change one without being prepared for a domino effect.

Maybe Oliver needed that letter in his back pocket to make him fight to prove those words wrong.

Maybe Felicity needed that broken heart to appreciate how deeply you could feel love.

She didn't know.  
There was no way to _ever_ know.

But what she did know is that she wouldn't risk the chance she had now just to put the theory to test.

This wasn't Hallmark.

Felicity felt her eyes grow heavy with those thoughts and within a few minutes she was fast asleep, still clutching her phone to her chest.

**》》《《**

**27 December**

She hadn't woken up in the morning in a red prom dress, just with a slight crick in her neck from sleeping in a strange position.

Now, outside No.135 6th Street, Felicity briefly checked her pastel pink lipstick in a compact mirror before the taxi rolled to a stop next to the curb. She paid the driver and stepped out.

As her nude Mary-Janes hit the pavement and a chilly breeze whipped up the ends of her sleek ponytail, Felicity tugged on the hem of her black jacket and took a slow breath. Her eyes glanced up the sky-skimming tower of glass. This convened meeting was it. Her chance.

“About fucking time,” Harvey grumbled from behind her.  
She stole another second to paint a smile on her face. _He's just a rung in the ladder._  
She turned slowly on her heels and greeted her boss with a practiced smile. “I made it,” she answered.  
“Next time how about we don't cut it so close.” He brushed past her and into the revolving door.

After another deep, steadying breath and a small coaxing reminder that he was a _rung_ , Felicity was ready to go. She followed Harvey into the marble-floored foyer. It was nearly deserted, and she assumed most people likely still on holiday. Her shoes clipped on the floor with a slight echo as she followed Harvey to the elevators.

“Did you do what I asked?” he enquired sharply.  
It was funny how a man that, on the surface, people might consider attractive could be such a giant tool... yet here she was, looking ‘proof’ in his green-blue eyes.  
“Yes,” she replied simply as she pushed the up button.  
“Good, I'll take it from here then.”  
The doors _dinged_ but Felicity's feet didn't move. “I thought I was making the presentation?” she quipped as Harvey strolled into the opulent gold-toned elevator cab.

He laughed. It was husky and demeaning and his eyes softened at her in what could be only described as pity.  
“Get in the elevator Felicity.” He plucked a hair from the cuff of his designer jacket.  
“Not until you tell me; am I making the presentation or not?”  
He looked up and patted his smooth jaw. “Not.”  
“Then why am I here?” she snapped back, frustration making her voice spike.  
“Look, you're good for the progressive types on the board and you're nice to look at for the old guys that make up the rest.”

She shook her head, agitated, as she tried to process this multi-tiered insult.  
“This is my tech,” she said as she slapped her hand on the door, keeping them open.  
“Actually,” he raised a finger and her agitation rose even higher, “that tech is property of Spick Tech and Innovation Limited, it's proprietary.”

A slow breath in filled her chest and she blinked one, slow time. “Is this because I turned down your advances?” It was a risky question and Felicity really wasn't sure what answer she was expecting to hear. But she asked it anyway, because she needed to know.  
He said nothing but the smirk on his full lips said enough. _It absolutely was._

She straightened her shoulders and touched a finger delicately to the slope of her swanned neck.  
“Maybe you don't need to answer that,” she breathed, her tone taking on a husky persona. “But we _are_ a little early and I'm sure there is a supply closet around here somewhere. Maybe I can show you my dedication to the job?” She batted her eyelashes and let her finger fall away just above her clavicle.

He stepped closer to the doors, brushing his finger tips across her knuckles on the hand she held the door open with.  
“Use your mouth to convince me,” he whispered as his free handled jostled the buckle on his belt. His inference was clear.  
“I suck your cock and I lead the presentation?”  
He pinched a section of hair near her face, pulled it down and watched it spring back up. “They said you were a smart one.”

Her painted lips curved into a smile and for a moment he looked ready to drop his pants right there and then, at least until she stepped back and dropped the folder of research onto the black marble.

“I quit.”  
His mouth gaped and Harvey wasn't sure whether to laugh or demand a reason.  
When he was locked in stunned silence, Felicity turned around and started to walk away.

“Pick this up,” he demanded and his voice echoed through the foyer.  
“You pick it up and while you're down there you might want to read up on the electronic pulses, battery life and probably how to spell the name of the device. Wouldn't want you to look like an inept dipshit,” Felicity called back.

“You're nothing without me,” he shouted, petulantly.  
She laughed as she took two steps backwards. “We'll see about that.”  
He followed her, his feet tracking through the spilled papers. “You can't leave.”  
She stopped and laughed animatedly. “I absolutely can and I believe I just did. But I'll tell you what Harvey, when I take over your family's little company I'll make sure you have a job on your knees,” she paused to collect a sheet of paper from the floor and hand it to him, “cleaning the toilets.”

She smacked the paper into his hands, turned around and walked out the same way she had walked in, only now with a sense of accomplishment which made her smile a genuine one.

She tore the elastic from her hair and let her hair whip freely around her face as she filled her lungs with the crisp air.

“Felicity,” a huffed voice called her name from one side and she turned instinctively towards it. It was Oliver, panting before he stooped over to catch his breath.  
“You can't .... in there. You can't... let .... guy treat you ..... worth more,” he word-vomited between heavy, winded breaths.  
“Did you run here?” she piqued.  
He nodded as he banded his large arm across his stomach. “From...35th street.”

That was a good few blocks. The fact he was standing was something of an accomplishment in itself. _She wouldn’t be._  
“Just to stop me from going into that meeting?”  
He nodded before he sharply inhaled.  
“Because my boss is a prick?”  
Another nod, a little faster.

“I know,” she shrugged.  
“But...You....better,” he puffed.  
“I deserve better?”  
“Yes,” a throaty, stretched reply.

“I know. I already quit,” Felicity remarked as she led Oliver to a newspaper stand.  
He leaned against it and took three deep breaths. He was fit but those last 4 blocks had pretty much knocked the wind right out of him.

“You quit?”  
She twisted a few strands of his hair around her fingers. “I know he's a jackass and while I thank you for your chivalrous sprint here to tell me that, I have it sorted.”  
“What about the electric Viagra?”  
“Oh he can have it.” She smirked as she patted Oliver's back, “but it's no fucking use without the programme I wrote two years before I started working for Spick. The same programme that I patented about the same time. The one that is wholly mine”. She looked back at the glass skyscraper. “All he's got in his hands without it, is a glorified sex toy.”

She checked her watch and a moment of realisation tipped her lips up into a smile. “You could still make your meeting, is it far from here?”  
“Actually,” Oliver started as his normal breathing pattern finally returned. “They seemed to think I was playing hardball with them so they offered me and extra $2million and the use of a corporate jet. I signed on the plane ride over. Bar ironing out the legalities with our lawyers, it's a done deal.”

She threw her arms around his neck and Oliver gladly lifted her into the air, swinging her in a tight circle on that city pavement.

“That's great because I'm kind of between jobs right now,” she chuckled as he set her feet back on the ground.  
  


**》》《《**

**31 December**

They hadn't left each other's side, holed up in a hotel penthouse that felt as opulent and fancy as the guest house at the B&B but was missing much of the heart.

New Years Eve was no exception and it would be the first time they would tell their families exactly how close they have become... well maybe not _exactly_.

Oliver touched the draping fabric of her gold-lamè dress where it cut away at her back and sighed. He couldn't help himself and under the warm, soft light of the bathroom overheads, Oliver danced a slew of lingered kisses up her spine, nipping the skin where her bone jutted out.

“Not this again,” she answered softly, though her lips were turned up into a plum-painted smile.  
Bouncy curls that spilled, loose, from her up-do tickled his nose as his lips met with the top of her neck.

He inhaled her, her natural scent heightened by the light spray of floral perfume and the tantalising spritz of hairspray. “We could just not go, celebrate here instead.”  
She shivered when his knuckles grazed up her spine and his hand cupped one side of her neck.

Wordlessly he tipped her head and she relaxed into his palm, opening the other side of her neck to his ravenous mouth. Melting kisses and lingered dances of his tongue had Felicity sighing warm breaths and her eyes lulling closed to his slow, attentive touch, before they flung open again.

“Oliver, no,” she warned. “Back, shoo.” She flicked a soft hand towel at him and like a scolded dog, Oliver retreated. “We're expected at this New Years Eve party and we are going.” She turned back to the mirror and ran a finger cross her eyebrow to smooth it. “Did your mom ask why you wanted to invite my mom?”  
Oliver idly ran his tongue over his teeth. “No, she was fine with it.”

Felicity blotted her lipstick with a tissue before she planted one hand on the vanity and turned to Oliver. “She wasn't the least bit curious why?”  
Oliver shrugged. “I told her we ran into each other in Haven Brook and it might be nice to have you and your mom around like we used to.”  
“And she just said yes?”  
He tipped his head to one shoulder, he could tell Felicity's tone meant she found it a little hard to believe but he had nothing to add. “She said that it would be nice,” he answered with a crinkled forehead.

Felicity pondered it silently for a few moments before she decided she was reading far too much into it. Moira was probably just happy to have Oliver home for the holidays and because of that that she might indulge his whim of inviting an old friend.

**》》《《**

The town car pulled to a slow stop outside Oliver's old house. Felicity felt a sharp tightening in her chest as she looked around the once familiar street from behind the safety of tinted windows.

The trees were larger and the houses around now seemed to be surrounded by high fences. It was also no longer a cul-de-sac, as the end of the road led off into a gated community.

The red letterbox was gone.  
The green one remained, with a fresh coat of paint.

“So how do we play this?” Oliver asked while he lay his hand on top of Felicity's, as it lay on her lap.  
“Casual,” Felicity said with a definitive nod. “If anyone asks we can say we're seeing each other and I suppose if we walk in there holding hands that should be enough,” Felicity fretted and she could feel her forehead getting wet with perspiration despite the frigid temperature. “Do you think I should talk to your mother though? I don't want her to think I'm some opportunistic floozy.”

“First off, relax.” Oliver soothed her hot cheek with a gentle kiss. “Second, floozy is a great word we should start using it again. Thirdly, they know you Felicity, they're never going to think that.”  
“Do they know why...,” she paused as she looked up to the beautiful house decorated in festive lights, “why I left?”  
“I never told them,” Oliver admitted. Part of his silence was embarrassment that he couldn't be what she needed, the other part was, even with a broken heart and a forged note, Oliver couldn't bring himself to say a bad word about her to anyone. “Only Tommy knew.”  
She bobbed her head in a slow nod.  
“Alright, I'm ready,” she said as she took a deep inhale and Oliver opened the door.

**》》《《**

A few pauses on the way up to the house and a desperate request for Oliver to check she didn't have her dress tucked into her panties (he suggested she lose the panties altogether) or toilet paper stuck to her shoe; Felicity and Oliver walked, hand in hand, into the Queen foyer.

It was different to what Felicity remembered and while she lamented the ivory wallpaper where there was now a coffee-cream paint, it would have been slightly strange if nothing had changed in the 12-odd years since she'd stepped foot in there.

Moira greeted her with a warm smile and a brief nod down to the two holding hands. It seemed that was all she needed. “It's lovely to have you back here again Felicity.”

And it was.

**》》《《**

Donna also didn't bat an eyelid; she simply embraced Oliver, kissed his cheek and softly muttered “Finally,” under her breath.

Half an hour before midnight, while Oliver was at the bar ordering her drink, Felicity felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. It was Thea, who had just arrived at the party with her boyfriend, a tall, silent type, in tow.

“Felicity?” Thea embraced a surprised Felicity in a warm and welcoming gesture. “When mom said you were going to be here I just had to make an appearance,” the svelte brunette gushed as she brushed back her loose, wavy locks.  
“I'm surprised you recognise me,” Felicity remarked. Thea had been only about 9 years old when Felicity left for college and while her and Oliver had frequently babysat the younger Queen, Felicity never imagined that she had left much of a mark on her memory.

“Of course I remember you, you were a much better babysitter than my brother,” Thea effused. She seemed genuinely happy to see Felicity. “Also your mom talks about you all the time so I feel like I've been through every moment in your life with you,” the nearly-20 year old spoke with a swish of hair through willowy fingers.

“Oh yeah sorry she does tha-,” Felicity stopped speaking and glanced across the crowded formal lounge where her mother was chatting with a few people Felicity didn't immediately recognise. “I didn't realise you and my mom talked about me,” she quipped, trying to hide her utter confusion behind a brief chuckle.

“She's so proud of you.” Thea reached out and touched Felicity's arm. “Every month she starts with a rundown on your life, New York sounds amazing.”  
Felicity's eye twitched. _Every month_. “Right, every month at the um,” she flailed her hand around in an effort to have Thea finish her sentence.  
It worked.  
“The monthly brunch,” Thea finished.  
“Right,” Felicity snapped her fingers, “of course the monthly brunch with you,” she pointed to Thea, “my mom, annnd...”  
It worked the second time too. “My mom.”  
“Right, the blonde laughed, slightly exaggerated. “I can't believe you guys are still doing that after all these years.”  
“Nearly 10 years I suppose, but of course I've only been going for about 5 years,” Thea corrected, oblivious to the fact this was the first time Felicity had ever heard of such a standing appointment.  
“Of course.”  
“It's so good to see you, truly,” Thea sighed as she hugged Felicity again. “You always made Oliver so happy,” she added softly as they stayed in the embrace. “Speaking of my brother, where is that dumb pine tree?”  
Felicity smiled as she pointed through a break in the crowd. “The bar.”  
Thea touched Felicity's arm a third time. “Don't leave without a goodbye tonight.”  
Felicity nodded, it wasn't said with any malice but there was something, perhaps unintentionally, poignant in her parting words.

Once Thea had left, Felicity scouted around the room with her eyes until they fell on the back of her mother's head. _10 years. Brunch._

She found Donna nursing a cocktail and pretending to understand a conversation her beau was having with a few others, but happy to be pulled away by Felicity and her hitched eyebrow.  
“This must be weird being back in this house again,” Felicity started as she looked around the perfectly decorated room; rustic chestnut furniture and art picked with a discerning eye.  
“Oh I suppose,” Donna blew off Felicity with a limp hand before she took an exaggeratedly slow sip of her drink.

“So tell me, so you normally order eggs Benedict or?” Felicity questioned, rather _interrogated_.  
Donna scrunched up both her eyes and her nose before she slowly lowered the cocktail glass from her pink pout. “You found out about that?”

Felicity couldn't help but laugh at the sad puppy face her mother was pulling at that moment. “I'm not mad you and Moira kept in contact, in fact,” she breathed, catching a glimpse of Oliver chatting with Thea, “I'm glad you did. I just don't know why you didn't tell me about it.”

Donna tapped the rim of her martini glass and sighed. “The truth is neither of us understood what happened between the two of you.” She quickly held up her hand, “and I'm honestly not sure I ever want to. But the two of us were friends and when it seemed like you two weren't going to fix this rift, we both decided to not let it come between us.”  
“10 years ago?” Felicity enquired.  
“A little over,” Donna remarked as she brushed her long, blonde locks back from her shoulder. “We decided not to tell you so that if one of you was in the wrong neither of us would have to be _that_ parent.”

Felicity laughed, rather buoyantly and Donna looked almost concerned until she couldn't help but laugh along with her daughter.  
“Wait, did you demand I come home because...you...and...Oliver...and...” Felicity's mouth couldn't keep up with her mind.  
“We may have already had an invitation to this party, let's just say that,” Donna pouted haplessly.  
“I should be mad,” Felicity remarked with a hand resting on her hip.  
“But, you're not? Because it turned out you didn't need us anyway. You just needed a freak storm event.” Donna took a drink and spiked her eyebrow up, twice.  
“Apparently,” Felicity simpered.

The cheer soon came through that it was nearly midnight and Felicity and Oliver's eyes met across the room.  
“For what's it's worth,” Felicity said as she started to walk away, “it was neither of us so you don't have to worry about being that parent.”  
Donna blew her a daughter a kiss as the two parted.

“Hi,” Oliver hummed as he gifted her a glass of effervescent champagne before his hands moved to her waist, holding her close.  
“So it turns out our mother's brunch,” Felicity advised, grinning. He looked surprised and a little concerned. “I'll fill you in later.”

They moved with the crowd to the backyard where an impressive amount of fireworks was set up. It felt surreal having Oliver's arm around her waist and his constant, warm breath on her neck as he leaned in to peck a kiss against her cheek. This is what love felt like.

 _Ten_.  
“I'm going to kiss you on one,” he whispered near her ear, the rasp in his voice making her body shiver more than the wintery air.  
“I'm going to kiss you back.”  
_Nine_.  
“It will mean something.” His voice still raspy and engaging.  
She looked up at him, diving into his kaleidoscope eyes before her hand brushed down his face.  
_Eight_.  
“It will mean everything,” she echoed.  
A soft smile danced through his eyes.  
_Seven_.  
“After I kiss you, I need you to do something.”  
She twisted her hands around the stem of her champagne flute as she nodded to his request, tiny and curious.  
_Six_.  
“You can't say a word.”  
Her eyebrow arched towards her hairline as she mouthed the word, what? behind the noise of the crowd.  
_Five_.  
He brushed his nose against her dainty pearl earring. “Not a word.”  
_Four_.  
He kissed the warm spot just behind her ear, the one that made her sink a little closer to him.  
_Three_.  
“Promise me.”  
“I promise,” she whispered, but Oliver heard it despite the throng of noise around them.  
_Two_.  
He turned to face her. She was all he saw; all he ever wanted to see.  
_One_.

The sky erupted into a brilliant, cracking light show and the crowd erupted into cheers and a mass of near-overwhelming noise.

But Felicity could only hear one thing; the shallow beating of her heart as her eyes closed and she felt his lips on hers. It was delicate and slow. His tongue traced the seam of her mouth until her lips parted, opening for him. His hands were somewhere on her body, she knew because she could feel their heat, but she couldn't focus on where, because his full, cushiony lips had her enraptured completely.

Time became irrelevant even as the gold confetti rained down on them. And then they were parting, but just barely. When her eyes opened, his index finger was pushed against his own lips.  
_Not a word._

Silently she nodded before he took her hand and led her through the crowd, effortlessly dodging revellers. When they reached the hall and Oliver turned right, Felicity knew exactly where they were going.

Unlike the other parts of the house Felicity had seen so far, the den had been untouched by changing home decorating fads and it looked almost identical to how she remembered it.

The tan couch remained as did the classically-white walls. The TV had been exchanged for a slightly larger, modern flat screen and the door to ceiling movie case now had a twin and an updated library of movies. She couldn't remember the exact colour of the cushions but if they were any different now, they weren't obviously so.

She wanted to say how much she remembered of this place and how it looked like nothing had changed but Oliver, seeing the words bubbling in her eyes, held his fingers to his lips once again and gave her a puckish wink. Felicity nodded; she understood. _Not a word._

He led her to the couch before he made a mountain of pillows on the floor. She laughed, just a soft sound escaping from her lips, as she sat on the makeshift seat with her legs tucked to one side. She wrestled for a few moments with the hem of her dress as it rode up her thighs but when it wouldn’t stay put she shrugged and left it sitting just below 'terrible inappropriate'.

Before he sat down, Oliver grabbed a few things from a nearby desk and when he carried them back Felicity realised he had a sketch pad, an A4 notebook and two permanent markers; one red, one green.

An eyebrow reactively hitched up her forehead as she watched him sit down opposite her. Confusion aside, she took the red marker and the notebook Oliver handed her.

He opened the first page of the sketch pad and showed her a message he’d already written.

In his own handwriting, inked in green, were the words; **I know I must look like a crazy person.**

He turned the page when her eyes left off It, a smile indicating she'd read the words.

**But I wanted the first words of 2019 to mean something.**

She nodded softly before her head dropped a little to one shoulder.  
She watched his smile lift as he turned the page.

**I love you.**  
**I have loved you before I knew what that was.**

She opened her mouth to reply but feeling the marker in her hands she opened the notebook he'd given her and wrote one word.  
**Ditto** and a heart.

A breathy but silent laugh brightened his face as he turned the page  
**I once made you a promise.**

Her nose crinkled trying to remember, but she wasn't sure.  
**??** she wrote.

Oliver gripped his hands around an invisible bat which he swung before gazed into the distance following a ball that wasn’t really there.

She clapped her hands as the memory came back.  
**Second home run?**

He replied with a happy nod before he raised a finger, _Wait_ , and stood up. She watched him with curious eyes as Oliver walked over to the bookcase, opened a bottom drawer and walked back with a baseball sitting in a weathered mitt. The one with his name scribbled on it in black ink, _Property of Oliver Queen_ , the one she'd seen all those years before when he'd found her reading Harry Potter on her lawn.

He handed both of them to her before he turned the page on the sketch pad.  
**This is the ball and now it's yours.**  
Next page  
**From the moment I saw you sitting on your lawn reading I knew you would be important.**  
Next page.  
**I just didn't realise how important you would be.**  
The sound of the thick paper turning in his fingers was the only sound to be heard.  
**But now I know.**

He turned the page again, popped the cap off the green marker and wrote the next page while Felicity watched.  
**Turn the ball over.**

Felicity picked up the ball and turned it in her hand until something made her stop and cup her hand to her mouth in a silence gasp.

There was a stunning white-gold diamond ring taped to the underside, set perfectly between the red, dirt-scuffed stitches.

When she looked up from the ball Oliver was on one knee in front of her. “Felicity, I'm all in,” he beamed, scooping her hand into his. “Will you marry me?”

Words were stuck in her throat and her eyes grew tears behind them.  
“Yes.” Soft, whispered, shaky. “Yes.” Her hand touched his jaw while her lips peppered his with kisses. “Yes.”

“I know I said we didn't need to rush into anything and we don't,” he started, brushing a stray tear from her cheek with his thumb. “But how I feel about you is now part of the fabric of who I am and it's never going to change. I'll marry you today or in 10 years.” He slid the ring slowly onto her finger, _a perfect fit._ “I just wanted you to know, you're my happily ever after.”

She lifted her left hand and brushed it down Oliver's cheek, the cool, smooth glide of the ring band making him sigh. “How do you feel about a winter wedding in Haven Brook Falls?”  
It was like she had read his mind. “I think that sounds perfect.”  
“So we should wait until next winter,” she hummed, with a tiny shrug.  
He kissed the back of her knuckles, lingering on her ring finger. “That would certainly make sense.”  
“Right,” she chuckled, “because this winter would be...,”  
“Absolutely crazy,” he finished for her.  
“Insane.”  
“Although,” Oliver breathed his lips so close to hers she could taste his last drink on the air, “someone I consider incredibly intelligent once told me that ‘all the best ideas are’.”

Felicity smiled, sunny and mischievous.


	11. And they lived ...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is it guys. So much for a one shot... lol

  
**10 January 2019**

Felicity sat cross-legged in the centre of the ivory, cast iron bed letting her hands ritualistically palm the pastel, flowery comforter in the room that was romanticism personified; from the lacy pillows to the loveseat in the corner or the dainty forget-me-not wallpaper and the subtle fragrance of vanilla that wafted beautifully around the room, emanating from the small incense stick.

Everything about the room sung of love, lovers, stolen moments alone in the arms of your _forever_ person; and Felicity was sitting in it completely alone, with her eyes trailed on the small, glowing light through the flurry of snow outside. Peering at what might have been a shadow that moved behind the light.

It was stupid really, ridiculous even, how she had agreed to this; it wasn't a bygone era where couples didn't cohabitate until a ring was banded on their finger and Felicity wasn't practicing enough religiously to feel some deep need to follow those motives; and it wasn't like she was a virgin.

She chuckled in her red flannel long johns. Oliver was well aware what he was getting and it wasn't a virgin.

But somehow Donna Smoak had mentioned how adorable it would be to spend the night apart and for a brief, now fleeting and in retrospect, terrible, moment Felicity bought into the idea; this sense of romanticism and fantasy that a night apart before the wedding would somehow make the event a little sweeter.

She huffed audibly as she fell backwards onto the bed. The only ‘sweet’ Felicity wanted at that moment was the sweet, sweet release of a long, toe-curling orgasm because _holy shit_ she was horny.

Teenage boy horny.

So horny in fact that Felicity found herself staring at the shadowy blob in the guest house across the garden, trying to imagine if that was Oliver moving about there or not. _Was he still awake? Was he having the same all-encompassing need surging through his body?_

When they returned to Haven Brook Falls absolutely no one was surprised to see them and Betty, Margo and Maggie were even less surprised to see they had brought an entourage of family and friends and were throwing a crazy last minute wedding to boot. Felicity was almost certain that there was some kind of town sweepstakes and, judging by the extra large smile on her face when their private plane landed, Trudy had won it.

That was three days ago and honestly Felicity wasn't sure how it was all going to pan out, but as long as Oliver showed up and there was someone there to marry them, Felicity would be happy.

The town had rallied around this crazy whim, with the three darling town matriarchs at the helm, and Felicity was certain the wedding the following day would be nothing short of beautifully perfect.

There were no night before jitters, no last minute worries. She was marrying Oliver Queen, the boy she had always loved. They had spent the last 3 weeks becoming reacquainted on the simple things; he still hated brussel sprouts, and she was still an 80s music aficionado. They had had candid discussions well into the early hours about their time apart and the few people that had come in and out of their lives.

Oliver met Felicity's college roommate and best friend, Andrea (who was gobsmacked for approximately twenty minutes when all the dots had been connected) and her still-sport's mad, now-husband, Trent (who shook Oliver's hand for a good 5 minutes). And Felicity re-met Tommy Merlyn, a character that time had barely altered with his puckish grin and model girlfriend in tow.

He took great delight in taking a picture with Felicity and Oliver, captioning it "True Love Exists" (a quote deliberately mushy) and 'accidentally' sending it to his step sister. She hadn't replied but her tiny icon below the picture said the message had been viewed and that was enough to make Tommy giddy. The best man had also apologised to Felicity in a quiet moment; but she had told him it wasn't necessary and serendipity finds a way.

A few of Oliver's teammates made the flight as did his manager John Diggle, who, when meeting Felicity for the first time, told her that he was glad to finally meet the “second home run girl”.

Two colleagues of Felicity's, Alena and Curtis, had also made the journey, Curtis glad for the excuse to leave his family reunion is Texas, and Alena delighted at the way Harvey's face contorted when he learned exactly _who_ Felicity was marrying and that her announcement of attending the wedding also came with a resignation letter; Curtis tendered his by email on the plane trip over and, just like that, Spick Tech and Innovation Limited lost the cornerstones of its ‘Innovation' division.

Felicity took a deep and deliberate breath as she stared up at the ceiling. Everything was perfect. Everyone was here. Tomorrow she would marry Oliver. Happy ever after. And while she took great comfort in that knowledge, one problem still remained... The aching throb between her legs.

She could call Oliver, tell him to come upstairs and _fix_ this. She very well could and she fully expected he would appear within minutes at her door; ready, willing and able. Reporting for duty. Locked and loaded. Prepared to engage... And whatever other euphemism Felicity could conjure up to make her snicker.

 _Only_... his parents were sleeping next door and his sister was in a room a few doors down, not to mention her own mother who was across the landing and would have a sixth sense about the whole thing.

She could make a dash through the snowy night to Oliver's room, open the flap in her long johns and beg for his magic fingers; she absolutely could; but she’d probably make a hell of a racket getting out the door; or fall in the fresh dusting of snow, and basically appear like a crazy sex-driven weirdo.

It was one night for goodness sake. She could survive one night without his thick, taut cock stretching her body so deliciously. For one night her breasts could manage without his large hands palming them and bringing her body to the brink of pleasure. She could cope without his raspy breathing in her ear as he grew close to climax. She could sleep without his kisses bathing her skin and making her body tremble. She could absolutely live for one night without the euphoria the culmination of all of those things gave her.

She absolutely could.  
Felicity touched her tight nipple, rolling the pebble between her thumb and forefinger as a needy gasp left her panting mouth.

Frustrated, she reached for her phone and without any clue what she was going to do about this predicament, her screen lit up in her hands.

There was a message from Oliver.

 **My body misses your body. What are you wearing?**  
Her body heightened and her playfulness along with it, Felicity popped the first button on her onesie and lay down on the pillow before she snapped a photo of her torso and the lower half of her face.  
**I'm wearing a smile thinking about you.**  
She waited, unabashedly glued to the screen, for a reply; once which came likely as fast as Oliver could type it.  
**That was incredibly sweet and not to be the creepy guy, but could you undo another button and take another?**

Felicity laughed, involuntarily loud, before she cupped her hand to her mouth. She undid two more buttons and checked herself briefly in the mirror before she took another photo, with a cheeky finger dipped under the edge of her opened neckline.  
**Better**?  
His response was almost immediate, albeit without any words, as it was simply a dozen fire emojis.

Felicity gnawed on the edge of her bottom lip as she opened her top further, showing off a crescent of her breast and an ivory-tipped nail dragged down the centre of her breast bone.  
**For your eyes only,** she captioned it before she hit send.

**My eyes are forever grateful. Who's idea was this, to spend the night apart?**

Felicity got a little more comfortable on the bed, turning onto her side, before she replied. **Must have been yours, certainly wasn't mine ;) But I miss you.**

 **How much?**  
**A lot.**

Her phone vibrating in her palms startled Felicity enough that she dropped the phone before she scrambled to collect it off the bed and put it to her ear without saying a word.

“Baby, how much?” Oliver's rich baritone voice oozed through the phone.  
She smiled, bashful, she knew what he was asking. With an eye watching the handle of her locked bedroom door, Felicity crept her hand down her body, over the smooth, warm curve of her stomach before dipping under the waistband of her panties. She was wet and warm, like silk between the pads of her fingers.  
“Soaking,” she whispered back, burningly intimate.  
Oliver growled at her reply, raw and desperate. “Ask me to come and fix it for you?”  
She sighed as her fingers swirled idly around her wet folds. “We can't.”  
She loathed the words but she had seen her own mother's coy reaction when she’d agreed to the night apart, it was as though Donna Smoak didn’t believe her daughter could go the distance, and while she may have been twenty-nine-whole-years-old, she would not give her mother the satisfaction of been right; _not a chance._  
“Fair enough,” Oliver lumbered out the words like they were burdens to his tongue. “But, I could help you from here.”  
“You could?” she simpered, fretting her teeth along the edge of her bottom lip.  
“Let me.” His tone turned almost dark, glazed with lust that made his breathing noisily husky to her ear; a welcomed aphrodisiac. “Take your middle finger and turn it in slow circles around your clit,” he instructed, his emphasis on slow duly noted.

She hummed, dreamily-thick, and Oliver drunk in her keen sounds like salve to his aching arousal, each sound like a reckoning to his throbbing need.  
“Now slide your finger down between your folds and graze just the pad of your thumb on your clit.” There was need in his voice, hunger and need, threaded around every word and dripping off every sentence.  
Felicity followed his instructions as her eyes gently closed and her breathing became frail and thin. This wasn't the first time she'd taken matters into her own hands, but with his raspy words coaxing her like a puppet, it felt insanely euphoric and she completely lost herself in the feeling.

“Baby, are you with me still?”  
She creaked one eye open as she felt a warmth splashing her chest. “Yes,” she managed.  
“Good. Now slow circles around your clit, it should feel tight and sensitive.”

She knew her own body and even without her fingers down there she knew by her hitched, uneven breathing and the tingle low in her core, that she was turned the fuck on, but she answered Oliver anyway with a soft, whispered “Mmhmm.”

“God I wish I could smell you, right below your pulse point on your neck.” He inhaled and Felicity shivered. “Put your other hand there for me baby.”  
She did almost immediately and Felicity could feel the thump of her pulse beneath the slick, heated skin of her throat.  
“Can you feel my tongue there? Stroking over your skin, slow,” his words fainted into a rasp as Felicity's fingers swayed softly, barely touching heavier than a feather, around the spot, making goosebumps in their wake.  
“Yes,” the word shook from her parted lips before her tongue swiped over them, wetting them breathlessly.

“Are your nipples tight and aching to be touched?”  
Every word he said dripped with sensuality and she tried to fight back her insane arousal at the mere sound of him. “Yes,” she answered, in no fit state to fight him or her carnal excitement.  
“Put your hand on one, _gentle_ ,” he commanded and she reacted. The touch of her hand felt electric and she bit back at husky moan.

“Do you want my hand or my mouth on it baby?”  
“Mouth,” she replied without hesitation.  
“Mmmm perfect.” She heard his lips smack together and her back reactively arched off the bed.

“I would lick you slow, tasting the sweat on your skin, god,” he moaned and she whimpered. “You taste so good when you're all hot and bothered and your skin,” a sigh, “it's so soft.”

“Move your fingers like my mouth, glide around your nipple but don't touch it, not yet, okay?”  
“Ooo-kay.” Her lips pouted, creased in frustration, but Felicity obeyed and soon her body was damp with perspiration.

“Are you still touching your clit?”  
Her eyes squeezed and her nose crinkled at the rawness with which he spoke about her body before she answered with a quivered, “Yes.”

“Dip your finger inside yourself.” Her finger moved as though it was no longer under her control. She was tight, warm and dripping wet. “Are you wet?”  
She whimpered. “Yes.”  
“Tight?”  
A sob shook her body. “Yes.”  
“Pump it Felicity, in and out, slow until it aches, until your body begs you to speed up.”

He could hear her breathing down the phone, it was fast and slow, it was short and then deep. She was close. He closed his eyes, imagining the way she was writhing against the covers. How her skin was probably glistening. The red blush coating her chest.

“Pinch your nipple, _hard_.” Oliver didn’t hide or temper his need; it was written in the deep growl of his voice and the darkly-sultry husk in his breathing.  
She did and a hiss broke from between her lips.  
“Pump faster baby,” his words were urgent; as was her response. Her finger moved of its own volition, in coalition with his words.  
“Fuck I bet your close.” Dark, heavy, needy.  
She sobbed a barely heard “yes”. Her fingers were frantically touching her body in ways she couldn't keep to track of and his voice in her ear... it was insanity. “Oliver...I...”  
She was so close.  
“Let go baby.”

She did and her body thrashed while her toes wrangled in the sheets. Felicity came completely undone around her own fingers.  
“I would lick you clean,” he whispered. She could only offer a soft whimper in response. “Tomorrow night will you do this again but this time I want to watch?”  
She nodded frenetically before she remembered he couldn't see her. “Yes. Okay. Yes.”  
“Mmm,” he sighed, satisfied. “Night Felicity, sweet dreams.” She blushed as her eyes plucked open, the reality of what they’d done making her smile. “Tomorrow I'm going to marry you.”

**》》《《**

Oliver kept his word and the two exchanged vows with everyone that mattered there to see them.

Her dress was draped ivory chiffon that pooled around her feet with touches of lace and linen that was effortless in the way it personified romance; while Oliver wore a simple grey suit with a frost-white rose as a boutonniere.

They were married a little before 3pm, outside in the snow in front of an old fireplace surrounded with candles scattered both at the feet of it and across the mantle, either side of a stunning floral display; set a mere stone's throw from the little old church.

Foraged pinecones and strips of soft, floaty silk-chiffon fabric in wintery-blue tones decorated the tables inside the large walled-marquee.

It was perfect; an epitaph to a love found amongst a serene beauty and at the delicate hands of fate.

And when Felicity and Oliver had their first dance under the stars, a gentle snow fall and a scattering of pine needles blessed them.

Because this was love.

The type of love 12 years apart could never extinguish. The type of love that found a way.

The type of love you wrote books about.

  
**》》《《**

**30 October 2019**

Oliver's stomach was in knots and his palms were sweaty as he twisted them around the black grip of his bat, before he tapped the end of the barrel on the ground and took a lumbered step forward. His legs felt like heavy weights were strapped to his calves and his throat felt more constricted with every breath he took.

He knew what was expected, or rather needed. He could see the scoreboard and the numbers were burned into his brain even when he briefly closed his eyes to settle his thumping pulse.

Another step and the thrum of the crowd hit him like the thick air on a humid day. It was all just noise to him; a mix of those resting hope on his broad shoulders and those hoping for an epic failure. He heard neither clearly over the echo of his own heartbeat.

Glancing to his right he saw her, wearing a smile and expecting nothing of him but to curl up beside her after all was said and done.

A wash of calm doused him and without thinking, Oliver diverted towards her. She looked surprise and Felicity leapt up from her seat as he jogged towards her.

He turned the bat in the air and pointed the barrel to her.  
“For luck?”  
She leaned as far over the edge as she could, curved her lips into a soft O and blew. _For luck._

Satisfied and before the coach could question him, Oliver took his place in the batter's box and breathed.

In.  
Out.

Hit.

He felt it down his forearms, through his shoulders and ricocheting down his spine. He heard it. He tasted the heated leather on the air.

In.  
Out.

The ball shot through the air like a white leather-clad bullet. Over the wall.

That was all they needed.

The crowd, 55,000 strong, erupted into just noise while Oliver dropped the bat on the home plate.

They had done it.  
The Commissioner's Trophy was theirs.

Team mates piled onto him as they ran onto the field. It was all just noise until he saw her face between the crowd. Her cheeks were wet with tears, her lips curled into the most perfect smile Oliver had even seen.

He could do anything with his perfect little good luck charm beside him.

Oliver broke free from the throng of players and ran towards her, stripping off his helmet as he ran.

He climbed the wall that separated them like it was barely a foot high and her laugh at the sight filled him with immeasurable joy. He kissed her deeply and roughly; tongue and teeth clashing as their noses smashed together and his fingers knotted into her hair.

The celebration had followed him over and when Oliver broke back from the kiss, the cork of a champagne bottle rocketed into the air.

The aroma of fancy bubbly permeated the air with fruity delight as the bottle sprayed over them.

The stadium chanted and cheered and the news cameras focused in on the revellers, putting their faces on the screens littered around the place.

When the half-empty bottle came to Oliver, he offered it to Felicity who declined him with a soft smile and a shake of her head, her voice well and truly lost in the thundering noise around them.

“This is for you too,” Oliver cheered as he held the champagne out to her again.  
Another shake of her head.

He could see her mouth moving but her words weren't reaching his ears. He smiled at her humility, she wouldn't accept the bottle because she wasn't on the field; but she was with him in every single way and he owed her everything; whether she knew it or not.

He offered it a third time and watched as her teeth chewed her bottom lip and her eyes fixated on him; she wanted to tell him something.

He tried to read her lips but he couldn't and her face was a thousand emotions rolled into one, nervous, happy, worried, surprised... He couldn't tell which one he ought to focus on.

“Oliver, any words?” A newscaster asked from behind him before jutting out a microphone in front of Oliver's mouth. Not that he noticed; his eyes were focused on Felicity's lips; watching them move.

And then he saw it; saw what she had been trying to say.  
Both words.  
Clear as day.

And it all made sense.  
_I'm pregnant._

“You're pregnant?” Oliver replied, loudly, and directly into the microphone.

His words echoed through the sound system and out into the live coverage across however many TV screens were still tuned in.

But he didn't care. He just watched her. Her slow little nod as her hand moved to her stomach.

He scooped her up for the second time in the last 10 minutes and buried his head into her neck.

With her feet dangling in the air, Felicity put her lips to his ear and whispered. “We're pregnant, superstar.”

 

The next three times Oliver learned Felicity was pregnant had far less fanfare and absolutely no film crews (Felicity made sure of that); and they never spent more than 12 days apart.

And they lived, truly, madly and just a touch stupidly ever after.

 

_Camera pans out._

**The End.**  


**AUTHOR NOTE: Well, that’s it guys. Fin. Complete. Done. The end. This has sure been a ride. Honestly when I had a whim at 10pm one night to write a fic based on poll results, I really wasn’t sure how this would come together. But, I wanted a challenge and I think I got one.**

**And it became this ‘little’ eleven-shot.**

**Special thanks to Emma who beta’d like a superstar. Sandy and Sherall who let me pick their American-schooling and baseball brains also deserve a special thank you.**

**And to you, the reader, the commenter or the person who left a kudos, thanks for coming along xoxox.**

**This was a blast ❤**

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, please let me know what you thought xox
> 
> Twitter / Tumblr @someonesaidcake
> 
> PLEASE DO NOT UPLOAD THIS FIC TO ANY THIRD PARTY WEBSITE.
> 
> Respect what I've spent so long creating. Thank you.


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